{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24690/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24690","id":"gutenberg_24690","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24690","summary":null,"tags":["Americans -- Philippines -- Fiction","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Philippines -- Social life and customs -- Fiction","United States -- History -- Philippine-American War -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ (This book was\nproduced from scanned images of public domain material\nfrom the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                         ANTING-ANTING STORIES\n                               And Other\n                     STRANGE TALES of the FILIPINOS\n\n\n\n                                  By\n\n                             Sargent Kayme\n\n\n\n                 Boston: Small, Maynard & Company 1901\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nThe life of the inhabitants of the far-away Eastern islands in which\nthe people of the United States are now so vitally interested opens to\nour literature a new field not less fresh and original than that which\ncame to us when Mr. Kipling first published his Indian tales. India\nhad always possessed its wonders and its remarkable types, but they\nwaited long for adequate expression. No less wonderful and varied\nare the inhabitants and the phenomena of the Philippines, and a new\nauthor, showing rare knowledge of the country and its strange peoples,\nnow gives us a collection of simple yet powerful stories which bring\nthem before us with dramatic vividness.\n\nPirates, half naked natives, pearls, man-apes, towering volcanoes\nabout whose summits clouds and unearthly traditions float together,\nstrange animals and birds, and stranger men, pythons, bejuco ropes\nstained with human blood, feathering palm trees now fanned by soft\nbreezes and now crushed to the ground by tornadoes;--on no mimic\nstage was ever a more wonderful scene set for such a company of\nactors. That the truly remarkable stories written by Sargent Kayme\ndo not exaggerate the realities of this strange life can be easily\nseen by any one who has read the letters from press correspondents,\nour soldiers, or the more formal books of travel.\n\nStrangest, perhaps, of all these possibilities for fiction is the\nanting-anting, at once a mysterious power to protect its possessor\nand the outward symbol of the protection. No more curious fetich\ncan be found in the history of folk-lore. A button, a coin, a bit of\npaper with unintelligible words scribbled upon it, a bone, a stone,\na garment, anything, almost--often a thing of no intrinsic value--its\nowner has been known to walk up to the muzzle of a loaded musket or\nrush upon the point of a bayonet with a confidence so sublime as to\nsilence ridicule and to command admiration if not respect.\n\n                                                        The Editor.\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    The Anting-Anting of Captain Von Tollig                    1\n    The Cave in the Side of Coron                             21\n    The Conjure Man of Siargao                                41\n    Mrs. Hannah Smith, Nurse                                  65\n    The Fifteenth Wife                                        93\n    \"Our Lady of Pilar\"                                      113\n    A Question of Time                                       131\n    The Spirit of Mount Apo                                  153\n    With What Measure Ye Mete                                179\n    Told at the Club                                         195\n    Pearls of Sulu                                           211\n\n\n\n\n\nANTING-ANTING STORIES\n\nTHE ANTING-ANTING OF CAPTAIN VON TOLLIG\n\n\nThere had been a battle between the American forces and the Tagalogs,\nand the natives had been driven back. The stone church of Santa Maria,\naround which the engagement had been hottest, and far beyond which\nthe native lines had now been driven, had been turned into a hospital\nfor the wounded Tagalogs left by their comrades on the field. Beneath\na broad thatched shed behind the church lay the bodies of the dead,\nstiff and still under the coverings of cocoanut-fibre cloth thrown\nhastily over them. The light of a full tropic moon threw the shadow\nof the roof over them like a soft, brown velvet pall. They were to\nbe buried between day-break and sunrise, that the men who buried them\nmight escape the heat of the day.\n\nThe American picket lines had been posted a quarter of a mile beyond\nthe church, near which no other guards had been placed. Not long after\nmidnight a surgeon, one of the two men left on duty in the church,\nhappened to look out through a broken window towards the shed, and\nin the shadow, against the open moonlight-flooded field beyond,\nsaw something moving. Looking close he could make out the slim,\nbrown figure of a native passing swiftly from one covered form to\nanother, and turning back the cocoanut-fibre cloth to look at each\ndead man's face.\n\nCalling the man who was working with him the surgeon pointed out the\nman beneath the shed to him. \"That fellow has no business there,\" he\nsaid, \"He has slipped through the lines in some way. He may be a spy,\nbut even if he is not, he is here for no good. We must capture him.\"\n\n\"All right,\" was the answer. \"You go around the church one way,\nand I will come the other.\"\n\nWhen the surgeon, outside the hospital, reached a place where he could\nsee the shed again, the Tagalog had ceased his search. He had found\nthe body he was looking for, and sunk down on his knees beside it was\nsearching for something in the clothing which covered the dead man's\nbreast. A moment later he had seen the men stealing towards him from\nthe church, had cleared the open space beneath the shed at a leap,\nand was off in the moonlight, running towards the outposts. The\nsurgeons swore; and one fired a shot after him from his revolver.\n\n\"Might as well shoot at the shadow of that palm tree,\" the one who had\nshot said. \"Anyway it will wake up the pickets, and they may catch him.\n\n\"What do you suppose he was after?\" he added.\n\n\"Don't know,\" said his companion. \"You wait, and I'll get a lantern\nand we will see.\"\n\nThe lantern's light showed the clothing parted over a dead man's body,\nand the fragment of a leather thong which had gone about his neck,\nwith broken ends. Whatever had been fastened to the thong was gone,\ncarried away by the Tagalog when he had fled.\n\nThe next morning a prisoner was brought to headquarters. \"The picket\nwho caught him, sir,\" the officer who brought the prisoner reported,\n\"said he heard a shot near the church where the wounded natives are;\nand then this man came running from that way.\"\n\nThe surgeons who had been on night duty at the hospital were sent for,\nand their story heard.\n\n\"Search the man,\" said the officer in command.\n\nThe native submitted to the ordeal in sullen silence, and made no\nprotest, when, from some place within his clothing, there was taken a\nsmall, dirty leather bag from which two broken ends of leather thong\nstill hung. Only his eyes followed the officer's hands wolfishly,\nas they untied the string which fastened the bag, and took from it a\nlittle leather-bound book not more than two inches square. The officer\nlooked at the book curiously. It was very thin, and upon the tiny\npages, yellow with age, there was writing, still legible, although\nthe years which had stained the paper yellow had faded the ink. He\nspelled out a few words, but they were in a language which he did not\nknow. \"Take the man to the prison,\" he said. \"I will keep the book.\"\n\nLater in the day the officer called an orderly. \"Send Lieutenant\nSmith to me,\" he said.\n\nBy one of the odd chances of a war where, like that in the Philippines,\nthe forces at first must be hastily raised, Captain Von Tollig and the\nsubordinate officer for whom he had sent, had been citizens of the same\ntown. The captain had been a business man, shrewd and keen,--too keen\nsome of his neighbors sometimes said of him. Lieutenant Smith was a\ncollege man, a law student. It had been said of them in their native\ntown that both had paid court to the same young woman, and that the\nyounger man had won in the race. If this were so, there had been no\nevidence on the part of either in the service to show that they were\nconscious of the fact. There had been little communication between\nthem, it is true, but when there had been the subordinate officer\nnever overlooked the deference due his superior.\n\n\"I wish you would take this book,\" said Captain Von Tollig, after\nhe had told briefly how the volume happened to be in his possession,\n\"and see if you can translate it. I suspect it must be something of\nvalue, from the risk this man took to get it; possibly dispatches from\none native leader to another, the nature of which we ought to know.\"\n\nThe young man took the queer little book and turned the pages\ncuriously. \"I hardly think what is written here can be dispatches,\"\nhe said, \"The paper and the ink both look too old for that. The\nwords seem to be Latin; bad Latin, too, I should say. I think it is\nwhat the natives call an 'anting-anting;' that is a charm of some\nkind. Evidently this one did not save the life of the man who wore\nit. Probably it is a very famous talisman, else they would not have\nrun such a risk to try to get it back.\"\n\n\"Can you read it?\"\n\n\"Not off hand. With your permission I will take it to my tent, and\nI think I can study it out there.\"\n\n\"Do so. When you make English of it I'd like to know what it says. I\nam getting interested in it\"\n\nThe lieutenant bowed, and went away.\n\n\"Bring that prisoner to me,\" the captain ordered, later in the day.\n\n\"Do you want to go free?\" he asked, when the Tagalog had been brought.\n\n\"If the Senor wills.\"\n\n\"What is that book?\"\n\nThe man made no answer.\n\n\"Tell me what the book is, and why you wanted it; and you may go home.\"\n\n\"Will the Senor give me back the book to carry home with me?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I'll see later about that.\"\n\n\"It was an 'anting-anting.' The strongest we ever knew. The man who\nhad it was a chief. When he was dead I wanted it.\"\n\n\"If this was such a powerful charm why was the man killed who had it\non. Why didn't it save him?\"\n\nThe Tagalog was silent.\n\n\"Come. Tell me that, and you may go.\"\n\n\"And have the book?\"\n\n\"Yes; and have the book.\"\n\n\"It is a very great 'anting-anting.' It never fails in its time. The\nman who made it, a famous wise man, very many years ago, watched\none whole month for the secrets which the stars told him to write in\nit; but the last night, the night of the full moon, he fell asleep,\nand on that one day and night of the month the 'anting-anting' has\nno good in it for the man who wears it. Else the chief would not be\ndead. You made the attack, that day. Our people never would.\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Smith to see you, sir,\" an orderly announced.\n\n\"All right. Send him in; and take this fellow outside.\"\n\n\"But, Senor,\" the man's eyes plead for him as loudly as his words;\n\"the 'anting-anting.' You said I could have it and go.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. Go out and wait.\"\n\n\"What do you report, Lieutenant? Can you read it?\"\n\n\"Yes. This is very singular. There is no doubt but the book is now\nnothing but a charm.\"\n\n\"Yes. I found that out.\"\n\n\"But I feel sure it was originally something more than that. Something\nvery strange.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It purports to be the record of the doings of a man who seems to have\ndied here many years ago, written by himself. It tells a strange story,\nwhich, if true, may be of great importance now. To make sure the record\nwould be kept the writer made the natives believe it was a charm, while\nits being written in Latin kept the nature of its message from them.\"\n\n\"Have you read it?\"\n\n\"Most of it. Sometimes a word is gone--faded out;--and a few words I\ncannot translate;--I don't remember all my Latin. I have written out\na translation as nearly as I can make it out.\" He handed a paper to\nthe captain, who read:\n\n\"I, Christopher Lunez, am about to die. Once I had not thought that\nthis would be my end,--a tropic island, with only savages about me. I\nhad thought of something very different, since I got the gold. Perhaps,\nafter all, there is a curse on treasure got as that was. If there\nis, and the sin is to be expiated in another world, I shall know it\nsoon. I did not--\"\n\nHere there was a break, and the story went on.\n\n\"---- all the others are dead, and the wreck of our ship has broken\nto bits and has disappeared. Before the ruin was complete, though,\nI had brought the gold on shore and buried it. No one saw me. The\nnatives ran from us at first, far into the forest, and ----\"\n\nThe words which would have finished the sentence were wanting.\n\n\"Where three islands lie out at sea in a line with a promontory like\na buffalo's head, I sunk the gold deep in the sands, at the foot of\nthe cliff, and dug a rude cross in the rock above it. Some day I hope\na white man guided by this, will find the treasure and--\"\n\n\"There was no more,\" said the lieutenant, when the captain, coming\nto this sudden end looked up at him. \"The last few pages of the book\nare gone, torn out, or worn loose and lost. What I have translated\nwas scattered over many pages, with disconnected signs and characters\nwritten in between. The book was evidently intended to be looked upon\nas a mystic talisman, probably that the natives on this account might\nbe sure to take good care of it.\n\n\"All of the Tagalogs who can procure them, carry these\n'anting-anting.' Some are thought to be much more powerful than\nothers. Evidently this was looked upon as an unusually valuable\ncharm. Sometimes they are only a button, sewed up in a rag. One of\nthe prisoners we took not long ago wore a broad piece of cloth over\nhis breast, on which was stained a picture of a man killing another\nwith a 'barong.' He believed that while he wore it no one could kill\nhim with that weapon; and thought the only reason he was not killed\nin the skirmish in which he was captured was because he had the\n'anting-anting' on.\"\n\n\"Do you believe the story which the book tells is true?\" the captain\ninquired.\n\n\"I don't know. Some days I think I could believe anything about\nthis country.\"\n\n\"Have you shown the book to any one else, or told any one what you\nmake out of it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Do not do so, then. That is all, now. I will keep the book,\" he added,\nputting the little brown volume inside his coat.\n\nSeveral days later the officer in charge of the quarters where the\nnative prisoners were confined reported to the captain: \"One of the\nprisoners keeps begging to be allowed to see you, sir,\" he said. \"He\nsays you told him he might go free. Shall I let him be brought\nup here?\"\n\n\"Yes. Send him up.\"\n\n\"Well?\" said Captain Von Tollig, when the man appeared at headquarters,\nand the orderly who had brought him had retired.\n\n\"The little book, Senor. You said I could have it back, and go.\"\n\n\"Yes. You may go. I will have you sent safely through our lines;\nbut the book I have decided to keep.\"\n\nThe man's face grew ash-colored with disappointment or anger. \"But,\nSenor,\" he protested. \"You told me ----\"\n\n\"I know; but I have changed my mind. You can go, if you wish, without\nthe book, or not, just as you choose.\"\n\n\"Then I will stay,\" the Tagalog said slowly, adding a moment later,\n\"My people will surely slay me if I go back to them without the book.\"\n\n\"Very well.\" The captain called for the guard, and the man was taken\nback to prison; but later in the day an order was sent that he be\nreleased from confinement and put to work with some other captured\nnatives about the camp.\n\nDuring the next two or three weeks a stranger to Tagalog methods\nof warfare might very reasonably have thought the war was ended,\nso far as this island, at least, was concerned. The natives seemed\nto have disappeared mysteriously. Even the men who had been longest\nin the service were puzzled to account for the sudden ceasing of\nthe constant skirmishing which had been the rule before. The picket\nlines were carried forward and the location of the camp followed,\nfrom time to time, as scouting parties returned to report the country\nclear of foes. The advance would have been even more rapid, except\nfor the necessity of keeping communication open at the rear with the\nharbour where two American gunboats lay at anchor.\n\nAs a result of one of the advances the camp was pitched one night\nupon a broad plateau looking out upon the sea. Inland the ground\nrose to the thickly forest-clad slope of a mountain, to which the\nAmerican officers felt sure the Tagalogs had finally retreated. Early\nin the evening, when the heat of the day had passed, a group of these\nofficers were standing with Captain Von Tollig in the center of the\ncamp, examining the mountain slope with their glasses.\n\n\"What did you say was the name of this place?\" one of the officers\nasked a native deserter who had joined the American forces, and at\ntimes had served as a guide to the expedition.\n\n\"That is Mt. Togonda,\" he answered, pointing to the hills before them,\n\"and this,\" swinging his hand around the plateau on which the camp's\ntents were pitched, \"is La Plaza del Carabaos.\"\n\nThe captain's eyes met those of Lieutenant Smith.\n\n\"La Plaza del Carabaos\" means \"The Square of the Water Buffalos.\"\n\nAs if with one thought the two men turned and looked out to sea. The\nsun had set. Against the glowing western sky a huge rock at the\nplateau's farthest limit was outlined. Rough-carved as the rock had\nbeen by the chisel of nature, the likeness to a water buffalo's head\nwas striking. Beyond the rock three islands lay in a line upon the\nsunset-lighted water. Far out from the foot of the cliff the two men\ncould hear the waves beating upon the sand.\n\n\"This is an excellent place for a camp,\" the captain said when he\nturned to his men again. \"I think we shall find it best to stay here\nfor some time.\"\n\n\n\nPerhaps a month of respite from attack had made the sentries careless;\nperhaps it was only that the Tagalogs had spent the time in gathering\nstrength. No one can ever know just how that wicked slaughter of our\nsoldiers in the campaign on that island did come about.\n\nThe Tagalogs swept down into the camp that night as a hurricane might\nhave blown the leaves of the mountain trees across the plateau; and\nthen were gone again, leaving death, and wounds worse than death,\nbehind them.\n\nWhen our men had rallied, and had come back across the battle-ground,\nthey found among the others, the captain lying dead outside his\ntent. A Tagalog dagger lay beside the body, and the uniform had been\ntorn apart until the officer's bare breast showed.\n\nThe first full moon of the month shone down upon the dead man's white,\nstill face.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CAVE IN THE SIDE OF CORON\n\n\nA \"barong\" is a Moro native's favourite weapon. With one deft whirl,\nand then a downward slash of the keen steel blade he can cleave the\nskull of an opponent from crown to teeth, or cut an arm clean from\nthe shoulder socket.\n\nWhen I was sent with a squad of brave men from my company to\nreconnoitre from Mt. Halcon, in the Island of Mindoro, and the force\nwas ambushed, the way I saw the men meet death will always make me\nhate a Moro. Why I was spared, then, and bound, instead of being\nkilled like the men, I could not imagine. Later I knew.\n\nThe Moros had no business to be on Mindoro, anyway. Their home was in\nMindanao, far to the south, but three hundred years of Spanish attempt\nto rule them had left them still an untamed people, and the war between\nthe two races had been endless. Each year when the southwest monsoons\nhad blown, the Moro war-proas had gone northward carrying murder\nand pillage wherever they had appeared. When the Spanish were not\ntoo much occupied elsewhere they fitted out retaliatory expeditions\nwhich left effects of little permanence. That year the Moros had\nfound not Spaniards but a small force of American troops, sent south\nfrom Manila, and from them had cut off my little scouting squad. It\nmade no difference to them that we were of another nation. They cared\nnothing for a change in rulers. We were white, and Christians; that\nwas enough. We were to be slain.\n\nThe leader of the Moros was a tall old man with glittering eyes set\nin a gloomy face. I watched him as I lay bound on the deck of one of\nthe war-proas; for, fearing attack I suppose, soon after my capture\nthe sails had been spread and the fleet of boats turned to the south.\n\n\"Feed him\" the chief had said, when night came on, and pointed to\nme with his foot. I thought then I had been saved from death for\nslavery, and deemed that the worst fate possible, I did not know the\nMoro nature.\n\nOn the afternoon of the fifth day out, we passed Busuanga and\napproached a small rocky island which I afterwards learned was\nCoron. So far as could be seen no human habitation was near, and far\nto the south stretched the unbroken waters of the Sulu Sea. The chief\ngave an order in the Moro tongue, and a black and yellow flag was run\nup to the mast head. In response to the signal all the proas of the\nfleet joined us in a little bay at the end of the island, and dropped\nanchor. At one side of the bay it would be possible to land and climb\nfrom there to the top of the island, from which, everywhere else,\nas far as I could see, a sheer cliff came down three hundred feet to\nwhere the waves beat against the jagged rocks at its base.\n\nThe smaller boats which had been towed behind the larger craft were\ncast off and brought alongside the chief's proa. I was lifted into\none and rowed to a place where we could land. My feet had been untied,\nbut my hands were still fastened behind my back. Two Moros grasped me\nby the arms and guided me between them. They would not let me turn\nmy head, but I could hear the voices of men following us. The chief\nled the way. He did not speak or pause until we had reached the level\nsummit of the island. When he did speak it was in Spanish, which he\nhad learned that I understood. We were halted on the very edge of\nthe precipice. Far down below the little fleet of war-proas floated\nlightly on the water, the black and yellow signal still fluttering\nfrom the flag ship. I could see now that the men that had come up the\npath behind me had brought a quantity of ropes. Perhaps there were\nthirty men in all. I wondered what they were going to do with me,\nbut had decided that any fate was better than to be a Moro slave.\n\n\"Men of Mindanao,\" said the chief, \"you know our errand. You know how\noften men of our band have been captured by the white men of the north\nto lie in prisons there, where death comes so slowly that a 'barong'\nblow would be paradise. The few that have crept back to us, weak,\nhollow-eyed and trembling, have only come to show us what it meant\nto starve, and then have died. The sky is just, and gives us once\nand again a white man to whom we may show that the prophet's words\n'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' are just. Give the white\ndog his due.\"\n\nTwo men grasped me and wound a stout rope, coil after coil, about me\nfrom my neck to my feet, until I was as helpless as a swathed Egyptian\nmummy. One end of another rope was fastened in a slip-noose about my\nbody, and a dozen of the men, sitting well back from the edge of the\ncliff and bracing themselves one against another, paid out the rope.\n\nThe chief himself, touching me with his foot as he would have touched\nsome unclean thing, rolled me over the brink of the precipice. The\nsharp rocks cut my face until the blood came, but that meant little\nto a man who expected to be dropped upon rocks just as sharp three\nhundred feet beneath him.\n\nSlowly I was lowered down the face of the cliff until, perhaps twenty\nfeet down, I found to my surprise that my descent had ceased, and that\nI was dangling before the mouth of a cave of considerable size. While\nI swung there, wondering what would happen next, the end of a rope\nladder flung down from above dropped across the opening in the side of\nthe cliff, and a moment later two agile Moros climbed down the ladder\nand from it entered the cave. From where they stood it was easy for\nthem to reach out and haul me in after them, as a bale of merchandise\nswinging from a hoisting pulley is hauled in through a window.\n\nLoosening the slip-knot they fastened into it the rope which had been\ncoiled about my body, and giving it a jerk as a signal the whole was\ndrawn up out of sight. Then, binding my feet again, they laid me on\nthe hard rock near the mouth of the cave, and climbed nimbly back as\nthey had come. The rope ladder was drawn up, and I was left alone.\n\nI was to be left there to starve. That was what the chief's \"eye for\nan eye and a tooth for a tooth\" had meant.\n\nFrom where they had left me I could see the proas at anchor, and see\nthe rocky point on which we had landed. That night they built a fire\non the rocks where I could see it; and feasted there with songs and\ndancing. Whenever the wind freshened, the smell of the broiling fish\ncame up to where I was, and I understood then why it was that I had\nnot been fed that day as usual on the deck of the war-proa. I began to\nrealise something of the depths of cruelty of the Moro nature. \"Began,\"\nI say, for I found out later that even then I did not measure it all.\n\nIn the morning the proas were still at anchor, and during the day and\nnight there was more feasting. Sometime that day I freed my hands. I\nfound that the thongs had been nearly cut. Evidently the men who\nleft me had meant that I should free myself. It was easy then to\nuntie the rope which bound my ankles, but weak as I was from hunger,\nand cramped from being so long bound, it was some time before I could\nbear my weight upon my feet. When I could it was the morning of the\nsecond day of my imprisonment and the third that I had been without\nfood. The men below were sleeping after their carouse, stretched out\non the decks of the proas. A sentinel on the rocky point poked the\nsmouldering embers of the fire and raking out some overdone fragments\nof fish made a breakfast from them and pitched the bones into the\nsea. Only those who have lived three days without food can understand\nhow delicious even those cast-off fish bones looked to me. I walked\naway from the mouth of the cave to be where I could not see the man\neat. The daylight enabled me to explore the interior of the cave\nmore thoroughly than I had been able to do before. From a crevice,\nfar within, a tiny thread of water trickled down the rock. It was too\nthin to be called a stream, and was dried up entirely by the air before\nit reached the mouth of the cave, but I found that I could press my\nhand against the rock and after a long time gather water enough to\nmoisten my lips and throat. For even that I was thankful. At least\nI should not die of thirst.\n\nStill farther in the cave I found a pile of something lying on the\nfloor. I could not see in the dark there what it was, but brought\na double handful out to the light. It was a fragment of a military\nuniform wrapped loosely around some human bones. Dangling from\nthe cloth was a corroded button on which I could still discern the\ninsignia of Spain. I flung the horrid relics as far out from the cave\nas my weak strength would let me, and sank down, wondering how long\nit would be until the bones and uniform of a soldier of the United\nStates would lie rotting there beside those of a soldier of Spain.\n\nA shout from below aroused me. A Moro had seen the fragments of cloth\nfluttering down and had greeted them. The men had landed on the rocky\npoint again, and a party of them were coming up the path. Slung on\na pole carried over the shoulders of two of them was a piece of fish\nnet, through the meshes of which I could see a dozen cocoanuts.\n\nThere was food; delicious food! And they were bringing it to me! I\nunderstood it all now. They had not meant to starve me, but only\nto torture me before they took me on to slavery. How good that\nwas. Slavery did not seem hard to me now. Slavery was better than\nstarvation. Oh I would work gladly enough, no matter how hard the task,\nif I could only have food.\n\nThe men had passed out of sight, now, climbing upward, and by and by\nI heard them talking above me. I leaned as far out from the mouth\nof the cave as in my weakness I dared, and looked up. Yes, I was\nright. The bag of cocoanuts was being lowered to me. I could see the\nblack face of the Moro who was directing the operation, peering over\nthe edge of the cliff. I sank down, too weak to stand. I thought I\nmust save what little strength I had to break a nut against the rock,\nwhen they reached me.\n\nI could see the bottom of the fish net bag. Now it was even with\nthe cave. I could reach it if it was only a little nearer. Why did\nnot those foolish Moros swing it nearer? I leaned out from the cave\nagain to try and signal to them.\n\nWhat was this I saw? Not one, but twenty black faces grinning down at\nme with devilish cruelty. And the bag of food that I had waited for,\nhung by a rope from the end of the pole pushed out from the rock above,\nswung lazily around and around just beyond my reach. I made a frantic\neffort to grasp it, and barely saved myself from falling headlong. The\nfiendish laughter of the men above was answered by a chorus of shouts\nfrom below. I looked down. From the decks of the proas and from about\nthe fire on shore, where another feast was beginning, the Moro men\nwere watching me.\n\nThen I understood for the first time the depths of Moro cruelty. I\nwas to be baited there until, crazed by hunger, I flung myself to an\nawful death upon the rocks below. I wondered how many men, perhaps\nbraver soldiers than I, had gone down there before me.\n\nI would not. If die I must, I would at least cheat those gibbering\nfiends of their show. I would die as that other man had done, far\nin the cave and out of sight. I dragged myself in, drank from the\nlittle stream of water, and lay down. I must have slept, or lain in\na stupor for several hours, since, when I recovered myself again,\nit was late afternoon.\n\nFrom where I lay I could see the bag of cocoanuts swing in the\nbreeze. Perhaps it had blown nearer and I could reach it. I dragged\nmyself out to the mouth of the cave again. It was just as far away\nas ever, and I too weak now to try to reach it. After a time I began\nto realise that there was no noise from the revelers below. I looked\ndown. The bay was empty. The proas had gone, the men gone with them,\nand not a breath of smoke rising from the ashes showed where their\nfires had been. They must have put out their fires. Dimly I wondered\nwhy. Anyway I had cheated them of their game. They had become\ndiscouraged, waiting to see me die, and had gone.\n\nThese thoughts were passing weakly through my mind, when suddenly I\nsaw something which made me stand up, weak as I was. Far out across\nthe Strait of Mindoro a streamer of black smoke showed against the\nsky. My eyes followed it to where a gray hull rested on the water. It\nwas one of our gunboats bound from Ilo Ilo back to Manila. I shouted,\nfaintly, forgetting that miles of space lay between her and myself. I\nknew when I stopped to think that she was going from me. Even if she\nhad come near Coron she had passed while I lay asleep.\n\nThat was why the proas had gone. They had seen the streak of smoke,\nand slipping behind the island of Coron had gone around Culion,\nand so on, home.\n\nI must have slept for some time after that, for when I was next\nconscious of anything it was the forenoon of another day, and the cave\nwas flooded with the bright light of noon. I did not suffer anything\nnow. That seemed to have passed. I lay quite easy, and wondered what\nit was that had aroused me. After a while I could tell. It was the\nceaseless twittering of a flock of birds which were flying in and\nout of the cave. They had not been there before, nor had I seen them\nabout. They must have come during the night. I thought if I could catch\none I would eat it, but I decided it was useless to try to catch them,\nthey darted about so swiftly. By and by I felt sure that this was so,\nfor I could see that the birds were swallows, and there came into my\nmind a vivid picture of the high beams of my father's barn, away in\nVermont, when I was a boy, and the barn swallows flashing like arrows\nthrough the star-shaped openings far up in the gable ends.\n\nTwo of the birds had lighted on the wall opposite me, clinging to the\nrock. I wondered what they were doing there. Perhaps I could catch\nthem. I would try. I found that I could rise, and that I was much\nstronger than I had thought. Even a hope of food seemed to give me\nstrength. I crept towards the birds and put out my hand. The birds\nflew, and dodging me swept out into the sunlight. I was near enough\nthe side of the cave now to see what they had been doing. Fastened\nto the rock was the beginning of what was to be a nest.\n\nOnce, years before that, I had been the guest of honor at a ten\ncourse Chinese dinner. After the tiny China cups of fiery liquor,\nwhich was the first course, had been drunk, the servant brought on\nwhat looked to me like fine white sponges boiled in chicken broth. My\nhost told me that this was birds' nest soup, the most famous dish of\nChina, made of material worth its weight in gold. It came back to\nme now that he had added that the best nests were gathered in the\nPhilippine Islands. Little did I imagine then what that scrap of\ntable conversation might one day mean to me.\n\nI pulled the nest down and ate it. It looked like white glue, and\ntasted like beef jelly. I looked for another, and found it and ate\nit. There were no more. I drank my fill of water, when I could get it,\nwhich took some time, and then I lay down and went to sleep. I felt as\nif I had eaten a full meal. When I woke I could almost have danced,\nI felt so strong and well again. In my new strength I even tried to\nreach the bag of cocoanuts, but they hung just as far off as ever,\nand that was so far no breeze quite swung them within my reach. No\nmatter! While I had slept, the birds had been at work, and half a\ndozen half-formed nests were glued to the rocks in easy reach. They\ngrew like mushrooms in the night. I pulled down two and ate them. For\ndinner I had two more, and one for supper.\n\nAfter that I had no cause to suffer, so far as food and water were\nconcerned. When the birds built faster than my immediate wants\nrequired, I tore the completed nests down before the builders could\nspoil them, and stored them away. The birds twittered and scolded,\nbut began to build again.\n\nHow long this would have lasted I do not know, but one morning when I\nwoke and came to the mouth of the cave to look out, I saw that in the\nnight a Chinese junk, with broad latteen sails, had dropped anchor\nin the bay below.\n\nThe shout of joy I gave came near being my ruin, for when the\nChinese sailors heard it, and looked up to see a white faced figure\ngesticulating wildly in a hole in the front of the cliff, so far above\nthem they thought, quite reasonably enough, that they had discovered\nthe door to the home of the evil one himself, and that one of his\nministers was trying to entice them to enter. Fortunately they could\nnot flee until the anchor was raised and the sails unfurled, and\nbefore this was done their curiosity and common sense combined had\nconquered their fear. The leader of the expedition, I learned later,\nhad been to Coron before, and now, lighting a few joss sticks as a\nprecaution, in case I did prove to be an evil spirit, he climbed\nto the top of the cliff where he could talk with me. He had seen\nMoro fish nets and proa masts before, and he knew the Moro nature,\nso it did not take long to make him understand my story, nor much\nlonger for him to effect my release, for these Chinese nest-hunting\nexpeditions go fitted with all manner of rock scaling machinery in\nthe way of rope ladders, slings and baskets.\n\nI was very kindly treated on board the junk through all the month the\nparty stayed there gathering nests, but when the men came to know\nmy story, and learned how for two weeks I had lived on nothing but\nswallows' nests, worth their weight in gold, remember, they used to\nlook at me, some of them, in a way which made me almost wonder if\nsometime when I was asleep they might not kill me, as the farmer's\nwife killed the goose that laid the golden egg.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONJURE MAN OF SIARGAO\n\n\nWhen I woke that morning, the monkey was sitting on the footboard\nof my bed, looking at me. Not one of those impudent beasts that do\nnothing but grin and chatter, but a solemn, old-man looking animal,\nwith a fatherly, benevolent face.\n\nAll the same, monkeys are never to be trusted, even if you know more\nabout them than I could about one which had appeared unannounced in\nmy sleeping room over night.\n\n\"Filipe!\" I shouted, \"Filipe!\"\n\nThe woven bamboo walls of a Philippine house allow sound and air to\npass freely, and my native servant promptly entered the room.\n\n\"Take that monkey away,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh Senor,\" cried Filipe. \"Never! You cannot mean it. The Conjure\nman of Siargao brought him to you this morning, as a gift. Much good\nalways comes to the house which the Conjure man smiles on.\"\n\n\"Who in the name of Magellan is the Conjure man, and why is he smiling\non me?\" I asked.\n\n\"He is an old, old man who has lived back in the mountains for many\nyears. He knows more conjure charms than any other man or woman in\nSiargao. The mountain apes come to his house to be fed, and people\nsay that he can talk with them. He left no message, but brought the\nmonkey, and said that the beast was for you.\"\n\n\"Well, take the creature out of the room while I dress, can't you?\"\n\n\"Si, Senor,\" Filipe replied; but the way in which he went about the\ntask showed that for him, at least, a gift monkey from the Conjure man\nof Siargao was no ordinary animal. The monkey, after gravely inspecting\nthe hand which Filipe respectfully extended to him, condescended to\nstep from the footboard of the bed upon it, and be borne from the room.\n\nAfter that the \"wise man,\" for I gave the little animal this name,\nwas a regular member of my family, and in time I came to be attached to\nhim. He was never mischievous or noisy, and would sit for an hour at a\ntime on the back of a chair watching me while I wrote or read. He was\nexpert in catching scorpions and the other nuisances of that kind which\nmake Philippine housekeeping a burden to the flesh, and never after\nhe was brought to me did we have any annoyance from them. He seemed\nto feel that the hunting of such vermin was his especial duty, and,\nin fact, I learned later that he had been regularly trained to do this.\n\nChiefly, though, he helped me in the increase of prestige which he gave\nme with the natives. Filipe treated me with almost as much respect as\nhe did the monkey, when he realised that for some inscrutable reason\nthe Conjure man had chosen to favour me with his friendship. The\nvillagers, after that early morning visit, looked upon my thatched\nbamboo hut as a sort of temple, and I suspect more than once crept\nstealthily up conveniently close trees at night to try to peer between\nthe slats of which the house was built, to learn in that way if they\ncould, what the inner rooms of the temple were like.\n\nMy house was \"up a tree.\" Up several trees, in fact. Like most of\nthose in Siargao it was built on posts and the sawed off trunks\nof palm trees. The floor was eight feet above the ground, and we\nentered by way of a ladder which at night we drew up after us, or\nrather I drew up, for since Filipe slept at home, the \"wise man\" and\nI had our house to ourselves at night. The morning the monkey came,\nFilipe was prevailed upon to borrow a ladder from another house,\nand burglarise my home to the extent of putting the monkey in.\n\nI had been in Siargao for two years, as the agent of a Hong Kong firm\nwhich was trying to build up the hemp industry there. That was before\nthe American occupation of the islands. The village where I lived\nwas the seaport. I would have been insufferably lonesome if I had\nnot had something to interest me in my very abundant spare time, for\nduring much of the year I was, or rather I had supposed I was, with the\nexception of the Padre, the only white man on the island. Twice a year\nthe Spanish tax collector came and stayed long enough to wring every\nparticle of money which he possibly could out of the poor natives, and\nthen supplemented this by taking in addition such articles of produce\nas could be easily handled, and would have a money value in Manila.\n\nThe interest which I have referred to as sustaining me was in\nthe plants, trees and flowers of the island. I was not a trained\nnaturalist, but I had a fair knowledge of commercial tropic vegetation\nbefore I came to the island, and this had proved a good foundation\nto work on. Our hemp plantation was well inland, and in going to and\nfrom this I began to study the possibilities of the wild trees and\nplants. It ended in my being able to write a very fair description of\nthe vegetation of this part of the archipelago, explaining how many\nof the plants might be utilized for medicine or food, and the trees\nfor lumber, dyestuffs or food.\n\nOne who has not been there cannot begin to understand the possibilities\nof the forests under the hands of a man who really knows them. One\nof the first things which interested me was a bet Filipe made with\nme that he could serve me a whole meal, sufficient and palatable,\nand use nothing but bamboo in doing this.\n\nThe only thing Filipe asked to have to work with was a \"machete,\"\na sharp native sword. With this he walked to the nearest clump of\nbamboo, split open a dry joint, and cutting out two sticks of a\ncertain peculiar shape made a fire by rubbing them together. Having\ngot his fire he split another large green joint, the center of which\nhe hollowed out. This he filled with water and set on the fire, where\nit would resist the action of the heat until the water in it boiled,\njust as I have seen water in a pitcher plant's leaf in America set on\nthe coals of a blacksmith's fire and boiled vigorously. In this water\nhe stewed some fresh young bamboo shoots, which make a most delicious\nkind of \"greens,\" and finally made me from the wood a platter off\nwhich to eat and a knife and fork to eat with. I acknowledged that\nhe had won the bet.\n\nIt was on one of the excursions which I made into the forest in my\nstudy of these natural resources, that I met the Conjure man. I had\nbeen curious to see him ever since he had called on me that morning\nbefore I was awake, and left the \"wise man,\" in lieu of a card, but\ninquiry of Filipe and various other natives invariably elicited the\nreply that they did not know where he lived. I learned afterwards\nthat the liars went to him frequently, for charms and medicines to\nuse in sickness, at the very time they were telling me that they did\nnot even know in what part of the forest his home was. Later events\nshowed that fear could make them do what coaxing could not.\n\nIt happened that one of my expeditions took me well up the side of a\nmountain which the natives called Tuylpit, so near as I could catch\ntheir pronunciation. I never saw the name in print. The mountain's\nsides were rocky enough so that they were not so impassable on\naccount of the dense under-growth as much of the island was, and I had\nmuch less trouble than usual going forward after I left the regular\n\"carabaos\" (water buffalo) track.\n\nI had gone on up the mountain for some distance, Filipe, as usual,\nfollowing me, when, turning to speak to him, I found to my amazement\nthat the fellow was gone. How, when or where he had disappeared I\ncould not imagine, for he had answered a question of mine only a\nmoment before.\n\nIf I had been surprised to find myself alone, I was ten times more\nsurprised to turn back again and find that I was not alone.\n\nA man stood in the path in front of me, an old man, but standing well\nerect, and with keen dark eyes looking out at me from under shaggy\nwhite eyebrows.\n\nI knew at once, or felt rather than knew, for the knowledge was\ninstinctive, that this must be the Conjure man of Siargao, but I was\ndumbfounded to find him, not, as I had supposed, a native, but a white\nman, as surely as I am one. Before I could pull myself together enough\nto speak to him, he spoke to me, in Spanish, calling me by name.\n\n\"You see I know your name,\" he said, and then added, as if he saw\nthe question in my eyes, \"Yes, it was I who brought the monkey to\nyour house. I knew so long as he was there no man or woman on this\nisland would molest you.\n\n\"You wonder why I did it? Because in all the time you have been here,\nand in all your going about the island, you have never cruelly killed\nthe animals, as most white men do who come here. The creatures of the\nforest are all I have had to love, for many years, and I have liked\nyou because you have spared them. How I happened to come here first,\nand why I have stayed here all these years, is nothing to you. Quite\nlikely you would not be so comfortable here alone with me if you\nknew. Anyway, you are not to know. You are alone, you see. Your servant\ntook good care to get out of the way when he knew that I was coming.\"\n\n\"How did you know my name,\" I made out to ask, \"and so much about me?\"\n\n\"The natives have told me much of you, when they have been to me\nfor medicines, which they are too thickheaded to see for themselves,\nalthough they grow beneath their feet. Then I have seen you many times\nmyself, when you have been in the forest, and had no idea that I,\nor any one, for that matter, was watching you.\"\n\n\"Why do I see you now, then?\" I asked.\n\n\"Because the desire to speak once more to a white man grew too strong\nto be resisted. Because you happened to come, to-day, near my home,\nto which,\" he added, with a very courteous inclination of his head,\n\"I hope that you will be so good as to accompany me.\"\n\nI wish that I could describe that strange home so that others could\nsee it as I did.\n\nImagine a big, broad house, thatched, and built of bamboo, like all\nof those in Siargao, that the earthquakes need not shake them down,\nbut built, in this case, upon the ground. A man to whom even the snakes\nof the forest were submissive, as they were to this man, had no need\nto perch in trees, as the rest of us must do, in order to sleep in\nsafety. Above the house the plumy tops of a group of great palm trees\nwaved in the air. Birds, more beautiful than any I had ever seen\non the island, flirted their brilliant feathers in the trees around\nthe house, and in the vines which laced the tops of the palm trees\ntogether a troop of monkeys was chattering. The birds showed no fear\nof us, and one, a gorgeous paroquet, flew from the tree in which it\nhad been perched and settled on the shoulder of the Conjure man. The\nmonkeys, when they saw us, set up a chorus of welcoming cries, and\nbegan letting themselves down from the tree tops. My guide threw a\nhandful of rice on the ground for the bird, and tossed a basket of\ntamarinds to where the monkeys could get them. Then, having placed\nme in a comfortable hammock woven of cocoanut fibre, and brought me\na pipe and some excellent native tobacco, he slung another hammock\nfor himself, and settled down in it to ask me questions.\n\nImagine telling the news of the world for the last quarter of a century\nto an intelligent and once well-educated man who has known nothing of\nwhat has happened in all that time except what he might learn from\nignorant natives, who had obtained their knowledge second hand from\nSpanish tax collectors only a trifle less ignorant than themselves.\n\nJust in the middle of a sentence I became aware that some one was\nlooking at me from the door of the house behind me. Somebody or\nsomething, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I did not quite know\nwhich. I twisted around in the hammock to where I could look.\n\nAn enormous big ape stood erect in the doorway, steadying herself\nby one hand placed against the door casing. She was looking at me\nintently, as if she did not just know what to do.\n\nMy host had seen me turn in the hammock. \"Europa,\" he said, and then\nadded some words which I did not understand.\n\nThe huge beast came towards me, walking erect, and gravely held out a\nlong and bony paw for me to shake. Then, as if satisfied that she had\ndone all that hospitality demanded of her, she walked to the further\nend of the thatch verandah and stood there looking off into the forest,\nfrom which there came a few minutes later the most unearthly and yet\nmost human cry I ever heard.\n\nI sprang out of my hammock, but before I could ask, \"what was\nthat?\" the big ape had answered the cry with another one as weird as\nthe first.\n\n\"Sit down, I beg of you,\" my host said. \"That was only Atlas, Europa's\nmate, calling to her to let us know that he is nearly home. They\nstartled you. I should have introduced them to you before now.\"\n\nWhile he was still talking, another ape, bigger than the first, came\nin sight beneath the palms. Europa went to meet him, and they came\nto the house together.\n\nAs I am a living man that enormous animal, uncanny looking creature,\nwalked up to me and shook hands. The Conjure man had not spoken to him,\nthat was certain. If any one had told him to do this it must have been\nEuropa. The demands of politeness satisfied, the strange couple went\nto the farther side of the verandah and squatted down in the shade.\n\n\"Can you talk with them?\" I suddenly made bold to ask.\n\n\"Who told you I could?\" the Conjure man inquired sharply.\n\n\"Filipe,\" I said.\n\nBut his question was the only answer my question ever received.\n\nLater, when I said it was time for me to start for home, he set me out\na meal of fruit and boiled rice. I quite expected to hear him order\nEuropa to wait on the table, but he did not, and when I came away,\nand he came with me down the mountain as far as the \"carabaos\" track,\nthe two big apes stayed on the verandah as if to guard the house.\n\nWhen we parted at the foot of the mountain, although I am sure he\nhad enjoyed my visit, my strange host did not ask me to come again,\nand when he gently declined my invitation for him to come and see me,\nI did not repeat it. I had a feeling that it would do no good to urge\nhim, and that if a time ever came when he wanted to see me again he\nwould make the wish known to me of his own accord.\n\nIt was not more than a month after my visit to the mountain home\nthat the Spanish tax collector came for his semi-annual harvest. The\nboat which brought him would call for him a month later, and in\nthe intervening time he would have got together all the property\nwhich could be squeezed or beaten out of the miserable natives. This\nparticular man had been there before, and I heartily disliked him,\nas the worst of his kind I had yet seen. Inasmuch as he represented\nthe government to which I also had to pay taxes and was, except for\nthe Padre, about the only white man I saw unless it was when some of\nour own agents came to Siargao, I felt disgusted when I saw that this\nman had returned. He brought with him, on this trip, as a servant,\na good-for-nothing native who had gone away with him six months\nbefore to save his neck from the just wrath of his own people for a\ncrime which he had committed. Secure in the protection afforded by\nhis employer's position, and the squad of Tagalog soldiers sent to\nhelp in collecting the taxes, this man had the effrontery to come\nback and swell about among his fellow people, any one of whom would\nhave cut his throat in a minute if they could have done it without\nfear of detection by the tax collector.\n\nI noticed, though, that the servant was particularly careful to sleep\nin the same house with his master, and did not go home at night,\nas Filipe did. The government representative had a house of his own,\nwhich was occupied only when he was on the island. It was somewhat\nlarger than the other houses of the place, but like them was built\non posts well up from the ground, and reached by a ladder which could\nbe taken up at will, as, I noticed, it always was at night.\n\nWhen the collector had been in Siargao less than a week, I was\nsurprised to have him come to my place one day and ask me abruptly\nif I had ever seen any big apes in my excursions over the island.\n\nI am obliged to confess that I lied to him very promptly and directly,\nfor I told him at once that I never had. You see there had come into\nmy mind at once what the lonely old man on the mountain had said\nabout men who came and killed the animals he loved, and I could see\nas plainly as when I left them there, the two big apes sitting on the\nverandah of his home, watching us as we came down the mountain path,\nand waiting to welcome him when he came home.\n\nThe \"wise man,\" sitting on top of the tallest piece of furniture\nin the room, to which he had promptly mounted when my caller came\nin, said nothing, but his solemn eyes looked at me in a way which\nmakes me half willing to swear that he had understood every word,\nand countenanced my untruthfulness.\n\nThe tax collector looked up at the monkey suspiciously, as if he\nsometime might have heard how the animal came into my possession,\nas, in fact, I had reason afterwards to think he had.\n\n\"Caramba,\" he grunted. \"I have reason to think there are big apes\nhere. Juan,\" his black-leg--in every sense of the word--servant,\n\"has told me there is an old man here who has tamed them. He says he\nknows where the man lives, back in the mountains.\n\n\"If I can find a big ape while I am here, this time,\" he went on,\n\"I mean to have him or his hide. There was an agent for a museum of\nsome kind in England, in Manila when I came away, and he told me he\nwould give me fifty dollars for the skin of such a beast.\"\n\nHe went on talking in this way for quite a while, but I did not\nmore than half hear what he was saying, for I was trying to think\nof some way in which I could send word to the old man to guard his\ncompanions. I finally decided, however, that Juan, though quite vile\nenough to do such a thing, would never dare to guide his employer to\nthe Conjure man's house.\n\nI did not properly measure the heart of a native doubly driven by\nhate of a former master from whom he is free, and fear of a master\nby whom he is employed at the present time.\n\nThe very next day Juan went to the Conjure man's house, and in his\nmaster's name demanded that one of the apes be brought, dead or alive,\nto the tax collector's office.\n\nThe only answer he brought back, except a slashed face on which the\nblood was even then not dry, was:\n\n\"Does a father slay his children at a stranger's bidding?\"\n\nThe next day I was in the forest all day long. When I came home\nin the edge of the evening, and passed the tax collector's house,\nI said words which I should not wish to write down here, although I\nalmost believe that the tears which were running down my cheeks at the\ntime washed the record of my language off the recording angel's book,\njust as they would have blotted out the words upon this sheet of paper.\n\nEuropa, noble great animal, lay dead on the ground in front of the\nhouse, the slim, strong paw, like a right hand, which she had reached\nout to welcome me, drabbled with dirt where it had dragged behind the\n\"carabaos\" cart in which she had been brought, and which had been\nhardly large enough to hold her huge body.\n\nI knew it was Europa. I would have known her anywhere, even if\nFilipe, white with fear and rage, had not told me the story when I\nreached home.\n\nJuan had guided the tax collector to the mountain home in an evil\nmoment when its owner and Atlas, by some chance were away. The Spaniard\nhad shot Europa, standing in the door, as I had seen her standing,\nand the two men had brought the body down the mountain.\n\nI think Filipe, and perhaps the other natives, expected nothing less\nthan that the village, if not the whole island, would be destroyed by\nfire from the sky, that night, or swallowed up in the earth, but the\nnight passed with perfect quiet. Not a sound was heard, nor a thing\ndone to disturb our sleep, or if, as I imagine was the case with some\nof us who did not sleep, our peace.\n\nOnly, in the morning, when no one was seen stirring about the tax\ncollector's house, and then it grew noon and the lattices were not\nopened or the ladder let down, the Tagalog soldiers brought another\nladder and put it against the house, and I climbed up and went in,\nto find the two men who stayed there, the Spaniard and Juan, dead on\nthe floor. Their swollen faces, black and awful to look at, I have\nseen in bad dreams since. On the throat of each were the blue marks\nof long, strong fingers.\n\nAnd the body of Europa was gone.\n\n\n\n\n\nMRS. HANNAH SMITH, NURSE\n\n\nThe red eye of the lighthouse on Corregidor Island blazed out\nthrough the darkness as a Pacific steamer felt her way cautiously\ninto Manila harbour.\n\nAlthough it was nearly midnight, a woman--one of the passengers on\nthe steamer--was still on deck, and standing well up toward the bow\nof the boat was peering into the darkness before her as if she could\nnot wait to see the strange new land to which she was coming. Surely\nit would be a strange land to her, who, until a few weeks before\nhad scarcely in all her life been outside of the New England town in\nwhich she had been born.\n\nPeople who had seen her on the steamer had wondered sometimes that\na woman of her age--for she was not young--should have chosen to\ngo to the Philippine Islands as a nurse, as she told them she was\ngoing. Sometimes, at first, they smiled at some of her questions,\nbut any who happened to be ill on the voyage, or in trouble, forgot\nto do that, for in the touch of her hand and in her words there was\nshown a skill and a nobleness of nature which won respect.\n\n\n\nThe colonel of a regiment stationed near Manila was sitting in his\nheadquarters. An orderly came to the door and saluted.\n\n\"A woman to see you, sir,\" he said.\n\n\"A woman? What kind of a woman?\"\n\n\"A white woman, sir. Looks about fifty years old. Talks American. Says\nshe has only just come here. Says her name is Smith.\"\n\n\"Show her in.\"\n\nThe man went out. In a few minutes he came back again, and with him\nthe woman that had stayed out on the deck of the Pacific steamer when\nthe boat came past the light of Corregidor.\n\nThe Colonel gave his visitor a seat. \"What can I do for you?\" he said.\n\n\"Can I speak to you alone?\"\n\n\"We are alone now.\"\n\n\"Can't that man out there hear?\" motioning toward a soldier pacing\nback and forth before the door.\n\n\"No,\" said the officer. \"We are quite alone.\"\n\nThe woman unfolded a sheet of paper which she had been holding,\nand looked at it a moment. Then she looked at the officer. \"I want\nto see Heber Smith, of Company F, of your regiment,\" she said. \"Can\nyou tell me where he is?\"\n\nIn spite of himself--in spite of the self possession which he would\nhave said his campaigning experience had given him, the Colonel\nstarted.\n\n\"Are you his--?\" he began to say. But he changed the question to,\n\"Was he a relative of yours?\"\n\n\"I am his mother,\" the woman said, as if she had completed the\nofficer's first question in her mind and answered it.\n\n\"I have a letter from him, here,\" she went on. \"The last one I have\nhad. It is dated three months ago. It is not very long.\" She held up\na half sheet of paper, written over on one side with a lead pencil;\nbut she did not offer to let the officer read what was written.\n\n\"He tells me in this letter,\" the woman said, \"that he has disgraced\nhimself, been a coward, run away from some danger which he ought to\nhave faced; and that he can't stand the shame of it.\" \"He says,\" the\nwoman's voice faltered for the first time, and instead of looking the\nColonel in the face, as she had been doing, her eyes were fixed on the\nfloor--\"he says that he isn't going to try to stay here any longer,\nand that he is going over to the enemy. Is this true? Did he do that?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the officer slowly. \"It is true.\"\n\n\"He says here,\" the woman went on, holding up the letter again,\n\"that I shall never hear from him again, or see him. I want you to\nhelp me to find him.\"\n\n\"I would be glad to help you if I could,\" the man said, \"but I\ncannot. No one knows where the man went to, except that he disappeared\nfrom the camp and from the city. Besides I have not the right. He was\na coward, and now he is a deserter. If he came back now he would have\nto stand trial, and he might be shot.\"\n\n\"He is not a coward.\" The woman's cheeks flamed red. \"Some men shut\ntheir eyes and cringe when there comes a flash of lightning. But that\ndon't make them cowards. He might have been frightened at the time,\nand not known what he was doing, but he is not a coward. I guess\nI know that as well as anybody can tell me. He is my boy--my only\nchild. I've come out here to find him, and I'm going to do it. I\ndon't expect I'll find him quick or easy, perhaps. I've let out our\nfarm for a year, with the privilege of renewing the trade when the\nyear is up; and I'm going to stay as long as need be. I'm not going\nto sit still and hold my hands while I'm waiting, either. I'm going\nto be a nurse. I know how to take care of the sick and maimed all\nright, and I guess from what I hear since I've been here you need\nall the help of that kind you can get. All I want of you is to get\nme a chance to work nursing just as close to the front as I can go,\nand then do all you can to help me find out where Heber is, and then\nlet me have as many as you can of these heathen prisoners the men\nbring in here to take care of, so I can ask them if they have seen\nHeber. My boy isn't a coward, and if he has got scared and run away,\nhe's got to come back and face the music. Thank goodness none of the\nfolks at home know anything about it, and they won't if I can help it.\"\n\nThe woman folded the letter, and putting it back into its envelope sat\nwaiting. It was evident that she did not conceive of the possibility\neven of her request not being granted.\n\nThe officer hesitated.\n\n\"You will have to see the General, Mrs. Smith,\" he said at last,\nglad that it need not be his duty to tell her how hopeless her\nerrand was. \"I will arrange for you to see him. I will take you to\nhim myself. I wish I could do more to help you.\"\n\n\"How soon can I see him?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow, I think. I will find out and let you know.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the woman, as she rose to go. \"I don't want to lose\nany time. I want to get right to work.\"\n\nThe next day the young soldier's mother saw the General and told\nher story to him. In the mean time, apprised by the Colonel of the\nregiment of the woman's errand, the General had had a report of\nthe case brought to him. Heber Smith had been sent out with a small\nscouting party. They had been ambushed, and instead of trying to fight,\nhe had left the men and had run back to cover.\n\n\"But that don't necessarily make him a coward,\" the young man's mother\npleaded with the General. \"A coward is a man who plans to run away. He\nlost his head that time. Wasn't that the first time he had been put\nin such a place?\"\n\nThe officer admitted that it was.\n\n\"Well, then he can live it down. He has got to, for the sake of his\nfather's reputation as well as his own. His father was a soldier,\ntoo,\" she said proudly. \"He was in the Union army four years, and had\na medal given to him for bravery, and every spring since he died the\nmembers of his Grand Army Post have decorated his grave. When Heber\ncomes to think of that, I know he will come back.\"\n\nThe General was not an old man;--that is he was not so old but that,\nback in her prairie home in a western state, there was a mother to\nwhom he wrote letters, a mother whom he knew to value above his life\nitself his reputation. The thought of her came to him now.\n\n\"I will do what I can, Mrs. Smith\" he said, \"to help you find your\nboy. I fear I cannot give you any hope, though, and if he should be\nfound I cannot promise you anything as to his future.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the woman. \"That is all I can ask.\"\n\nAnd so it came about that Mrs. Hannah Smith was enrolled as a nurse,\nand assigned to duty as near the front in the island of Luzon as any\nnurse could go.\n\nSix months passed, and then another six came near to their\nend. Mrs. Smith renewed the lease of the farm back among the New\nEngland hills for another year, and wrote to a neighbor's wife to see\nthat her woolen clothes and furs were aired and then packed away with\na fresh supply of camphor to keep the moths out of them.\n\nIn this year's time Mrs. Smith had picked up a wonderful smattering\nof the Spanish and Tagalog languages for a woman who had lived\nthe life she had before she came to the East. The reason for this,\nso her companions said, was her being \"just possessed to talk with\nthose native prisoners who are brought wounded to the hospital.\" The\nother nurses liked her. She not only was willing to take the cases\nthey liked least--the natives--but asked for them.\n\nAnd sometime in the course of their hospital experience, all\nMrs. Smith's native patients--if they did not die before they got\nable to talk coherently--had to go through the same catechism:\n\nWas there a white man among the people from whom they had come;\na white man who had come there from the American army?\n\nWas he a tall young man with light hair and a smooth face?\n\nDid he have a three-cornered white scar on one side of his chin,\nwhere a steer had hooked him when he was a boy?\n\nDid he look like this picture? (A photograph was shown the patient)\n\nFrom no one, though, did she get the answer that her heart craved. Some\nof the prisoners knew white men that had come among the Tagalog\nnatives, but no one knew a man who answered to this description.\n\nOne day a native prisoner who had been brought in more than a week\nbefore, terribly wounded, opened his eyes to consciousness for the\nfirst time, after days and nights of stupor. He was one of these who\nnaturally fell, now, to \"Mrs. Smith's lot,\" as the surgeons called\nthem. As soon as the nurse's watchful eyes saw the change in the man\nshe came to him and bent over his cot.\n\n\"Water, please,\" he murmured\n\nThe woman brought the water, her two natures struggling to decide\nwhat she should do after she had given it to him. As nurse, she knew\nthe man ought not to be allowed to talk then. As mother, she was\nimpatient to ask him where he had learned to speak English, and to\ninquire if he knew her boy.\n\nThe nurse conquered. The patient drank the water and was allowed to\ngo to sleep again undisturbed.\n\nIn time, though, he was stronger, and then, one day, the mother's\nquestions were asked for the hundredth time; and the last.\n\nYes, the prisoner patient knew just such a man. He had come among the\npeople of the tribe many months ago. He was a tall, fair young man,\nand he had such a scar as the \"senora,\" described. He was a fine young\nman. Once, when this man's father had been sick, the white man had\ndoctored him and made him well. It was this white man, the patient\nsaid, who had taught him the little English that he knew.\n\n\"Yes,\" when he saw the photograph of Heber Smith, \"that is the man. He\nhas a picture, too,\" the patient said, \"two pictures, little ones,\nset in a little gold box which hangs on his watch chain.\"\n\nThe hospital nurse unclasped a big cameo breast pin from the throat\nof her gown and held it down so that the man in bed could see a\ndaguerreotype set in the back of the pin.\n\n\"Was one of the pictures like that?\" she asked.\n\nThe Tagalog looked at the picture, a likeness of a middle-aged man\nwearing the coat and hat of the Grand Army of the Republic. In the\npicture a medal pinned on to the breast of the man's coat showed.\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, \"one of the pictures is like that.\"\n\nThen he looked up curiously at the woman sitting beside his bed. \"The\nother picture is that of a woman,\" he went on, \"and--yes--\" still\nstudying her face, \"I think it must be you. Only,\" he added, \"it\ndoesn't look very much like you.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the woman, with a grim smile, \"it doesn't. It was taken\na good many years ago, when I was younger than I am now, and when I\nhadn't been baked for a year in this heathen climate. It's me, though.\"\n\nIn time, Juan, that was the man's name, was so far recovered of his\nwound that he was to be discharged from the hospital and placed with\nthe other able-bodied prisoners. The hospital at that time occupied\nan old convent. The day before Juan was to be discharged, Mrs. Smith\nmanaged her cases so that for a time no one else was left in one of\nthe rooms with her but this man.\n\n\"Juan,\" she said, when she was sure they were alone, and that no one\nwas anywhere within hearing, \"do you feel that I have done anything\nto help you to get well?\"\n\nThe man reached down, and taking one of the nurse's hands in his own\nbent over and kissed it.\n\n\"Senora,\" he said, \"I owe my life to you.\"\n\n\"Will you do something for me, then? Something which I want done more\nthan anything else in the world?\"\n\n\"My life is the senora's. I would that I had ten lives to give her.\"\n\nThe woman pulled a letter from out the folds of her nurse's dress. The\nenvelope was not sealed, and before she fastened it she took the\nletter which was in it out and read it over for one last time. Then,\npulling from her waist a little red, white and blue badge pin--one\nof those patriotic emblems which so many people wear at times--she\ndropped this into the letter, sealed the envelope, and handed it to\nthe Tagalog. The envelope bore no address.\n\n\"I hav'n't put the name of the place on it you said you came from,\"\nshe told the man, \"because goodness only knows how it is spelled;\nI don't. Besides that, it isn't necessary. You know the place, and\nyou know the man; the man who has got my picture and his father's in\na gold locket on his watch chain. I want you to give this letter into\nhis own hands. I expect it will be rather a ticklish job for you to\nget away from here and get through the lines, but I guess you can do\nit if you try. Other men have. Don't start until you are well enough\nso you will have strength to make the whole trip.\"\n\nA week or so after that, one of the surgeons making his daily visit\nreported that Juan had made his escape the previous night, and up to\nthat time had not been brought back.\n\n\"What a shame!\" said one of the other nurses. \"After all the care\nyou gave that man, Mrs. Smith. It does seem as if he might have had\na little more gratitude.\"\n\nMrs. Smith said nothing aloud. But to herself, when she was alone,\nshe said: \"Well, I suppose some folks would say that I wasn't acting\nright, but I guess I've saved the lives of enough of those men since\nI've been here so that I'm entitled to one of them if I want him.\"\n\nThen she went on with her work, and waited; and the waiting was harder\nthan the work.\n\n\n\nAn American expedition was slowly toiling across the island of\nLuzon to locate and occupy a post in the north. Four companies of\nmen marched in advance, with a guard in the rear. Between them were\nthe mule teams with the camp luggage and the ever present hospital\ncorps. No trace of the enemy had been seen in that part of the island\nfor weeks. Scouts who had gone on in advance had reported the way to\nbe clear, and the force was being hurried up to get through a ravine\nwhich it was approaching, so it could go into camp for the night on\nhigh, level ground just beyond the valley.\n\nSuddenly a man's voice rang out upon the hot air; an English, speaking\nvoice, strong and clear, and coming, so it seemed at first to the\ntroops when they heard it, from the air above them:\n\n\"Halt! Halt!\" the voice cried.\n\n\"Go back! There is an ambush on both sides! Save yourselves! Be--\"\n\nThe warning was unfinished. Those of the Americans who had located\nthe sound of the words and had looked in the direction from which\nthey came, had seen a white man standing on the rocky side of the\nravine above them and in front of them. They had seen him throw up\nhis arms and fall backward out of sight, leaving his last sentence\nunfinished. Then there had come the report of a gun, and then an\nattack, with scores of shouting Tagalogs swarming down the sides of\nthe ravine.\n\nThe skirmish was over, though, almost as soon as it had begun, and\nwith little harm to any of the Americans except to such of the scouts\nas had been cut off in advance. The warning had come in time--had come\nbefore the advancing column had marched between the forces hidden on\nboth sides of the ravine. The Tagalogs could not face the fire with\nwhich the Americans met them. They fled up the ravine, and up both\nsides of the gorge, into the shelter of the forest, and were gone. The\nAmericans, satisfied at length that the way was clear, moved forward\nand went into camp on the ground which had previously been chosen,\nthrowing out advance lines of pickets, and taking extra precautions\nto be prepared against a night attack.\n\nEarly in the evening shots were heard on the outer picket line, and\na little later two men came to the commanding officers tent bringing\nwith them a native.\n\n\"He was trying to come through our lines and get into the camp, sir,\"\nthey reported. \"Two men fired at him, but missed him.\"\n\n\"Think he's a spy?\" the commander asked of another officer who was\nwith him.\n\n\"No, Senor, I am not a spy,\" the prisoner said, surprising all the\nmen by speaking in English. \"I have left my people, I want to be sent\nto Manila, to the American camp there.\"\n\n\"He's a deserter,\" said one of the officers. Then to the men who held\nthe prisoner, \"Better search him.\"\n\nFrom out the prisoner's blouse one of the soldiers brought a paper,\na sheet torn from a note book, folded, and fastened only by a red,\nwhite and blue badge pin stuck through the paper.\n\nThe officer to whom the soldier had handed the paper pulled out the\npin which had kept it folded, and started to open it, when he saw\nthere was something written on the side through which the pin had been\nthrust. Bending down to where the camp light fell upon the writing,\nhe saw that it was an address, scrawled in lead pencil:\n\n\"Mrs. Hannah Smith; Nurse.\"\n\n\"Do you know the woman to whom this letter is sent? he asked in\namazement of the Tagalog from whom it had been taken.\n\n\"Yes Senor.\"\n\n\"Do you know where she is now?\"\n\n\"Yes, Senor. She is in a hospital not far from Manila. She is a\ngood woman. My life is hers. I was there once for many, many days,\nshot through here,\" he placed his hand on his side, \"and she made me\nwell again.\"\n\n\"Do you know who sent this letter to her?\"\n\n\"Yes, Senor.\"\n\n\"Who was it?\"\n\nThe man hesitated.\n\n\"Who was it? Answer. It is for her good I want to know.\"\n\n\"It was her son, Senor.\"\n\n\"Was he the man who gave us warning of the ambush today?\"\n\n\"Yes, Senor.\"\n\nThe officer folded the paper, unread, and thrust the pin back through\nthe folds. The enamel on the badge glistened in the camp light.\n\n\"Keep the Tagalog here,\" he said to the men, \"until I come back;\"\nand walked across the camp to where the hospital tents had been set up.\n\n\"Where is Mrs. Smith?\" he asked of the surgeon in charge.\n\n\"Taking care of the men who were wounded this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Will you tell her that I want to see her alone in your tent, here,\nand then see that no one else comes in?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Smith,\" he said, when the nurse came in, \"I have something here\nfor you--a letter. It has just been brought into camp, by a native who\ndid not know that you were here and who wanted to be sent to Manila\nto find you. It is not very strongly sealed, but no one has read it\nsince it was brought into camp.\"\n\nHe gave the bit of paper to the nurse, and then turned away to stand\nin the door of the tent, that he might not look at her while she read\nit. Enough of the nurse's story was known in the army now so that the\nofficer could guess something of what this message might mean to her.\n\nA sound in the tent behind the officer made him turn. The woman had\nsunk down on the ground beneath the surgeon's light, and resting her\narms upon a camp stool had hid her face.\n\nA moment later she raised her head, her face wet with tears and\nwearing an expression of mingled grief and joy, and held out the\nletter to the officer.\n\n\"Read it!\" she said. \"Thank God!\" and then, \"My boy! My boy!\" and\nhid her face again.\n\n\"Dear mother,\" the scrawled note read.\n\n\"I got your letter. I'm glad you wrote it. It made things plain I\nhadn't seen before. My chance has come--quicker than I had expected. I\nwish I might have seen you again, but I shan't. A column of our men\nare coming up the valley just below here, marching straight into an\nambush. I have tried to get word to them, but I can't, because the\nTagalogs watch me so close. They never have trusted me. The only way\nfor me is to rush out when the men get near enough, and shout to them,\nand that will be the end of it all for me. I don't care, only that I\nwish I could see you again. Juan will take this letter to you. When\nyou get it, and the men come back, if I save them, I think perhaps\nthey will clear my name. Then you can go home.\n\n\"The men are almost here. Mother, dear, good by.--Your Boy.\"\n\n\"I wish I might have seen him,\" the woman said, a little later. \"But\nI won't complain. What I most prayed God for has been granted me.\"\n\n\"They'll let the charge against him drop, now, won't they? Don't you\nthink he has earned it?\"\n\n\"I think he surely has. No braver deed has been done in all this war.\"\n\n\"Don't try to come, now, Mrs Smith,\" as the nurse rose to her\nfeet. \"Stay here, and I will send one of the women to you.\"\n\nWhen he had done this the officer went back to where the men were\nstill holding Juan between them.\n\n\"Your journey is shorter than you thought,\" the officer said to the\nTagalog. \"Mrs. Smith is in this camp, and I have given the letter\nto her.\"\n\n\"May I see her?\" exclaimed the man.\n\n\"Not now. In the morning you may. Have you seen this man, her son,\nsince he was shot?\"\n\n\"No, Senor. He gave me the note and told me to slip into the forest\nas soon as the fight began, so as to get away without any one seeing\nme. Then I was to stay out of the way until I could get into this\ncamp.\"\n\n\"Do you know where he stood when he was shot?\"\n\n\"Yes, Senor.\"\n\n\"Can you take a party of men there tonight?\"\n\n\"Yes, Senor; most gladly.\"\n\n\n\nAfterward, when it came to be known that Heber Smith would live,\nin spite of his wounds and the hours that he had lain there in the\nbushes unconscious and uncared for, there was the greatest diversity\nof opinion as to what had really saved his life.\n\nThe surgeons said it was partly their skill, and partly the superb\nconstitution that years of work on a New England farm had given to\nthe young man. His mother believed that he had been spared for her\nsake. Heber Smith himself always said it was his mother's care that\nsaved his life, while Juan never had the least doubt that the young\nsoldier had been protected solely by a marvellous \"anting-anting\"\nwhich he himself had slipped unsuspected into the American soldier's\nblouse that day, before he had left him. As soon as she knew that her\nson would live, Mrs. Smith started for Washington, carrying with her\npapers which made it possible for her to be allowed to plead her case\nthere as she had pleaded it in Manila. A pardon was sent back, as fast\nas wire and steamer and wire again could convey it. Heber Smith wears\nthe uniform of a second lieutenant, now, won for bravery in action\nsince he went back into the service; and every one who knew her in\nthe Philippines, cherishes the memory of Mrs. Hannah Smith; Nurse.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIFTEENTH WIFE\n\n\nMateo, my Filipino servant, was helping me sort over specimens one day\nunder the thatched roof of a shed which I had hired to use for such\nwork while I was on the island of Culion, when I was startled to see\nhim suddenly drop the bird skin he had been working on, and fall upon\nhis knees, bending his body forward, his face turned toward the road,\nuntil his forehead touched the floor.\n\nAt first I thought he must be having some new kind of a fit, peculiar\nto the Philippine Islands, until I happened to glance up the road\ntoward the town, from which my house was a little distance removed,\nand saw coming toward us a most remarkable procession.\n\nFour native soldiers walked in front, two carrying long spears, and\ntwo carrying antiquated seven-foot muskets, relics of a former era in\nfire arms. After the soldiers came four Visayan slaves, bearing on\ntheir shoulders a sort of platform covered with rugs and cushions,\non which a woman reclined. On one side of the litter walked another\nslave, holding a huge umbrella so as to keep the sun's rays off the\nwoman's face. Two more soldiers walked behind.\n\nMateo might have been a statue, or a dead man, for all the attention\nhe paid to my questions until after the procession had passed the\nhouse. Then, resuming a perpendicular position once more, he said,\n\"That was the Sultana Ahmeya, the Sultana.\"\n\nThen he went on to explain that there were thirteen other sultanas, of\nassorted colors, who helped make home happy for the Sultan of Culion,\nwho after all, well supplied as he might at first seem to be, was only\na sort of fourth-class sovereign, so far as sultanas are concerned,\nsince his fellow monarch on a neighboring larger island, the Sultan\nof Sulu, is said to have four hundred wives.\n\nAhmeya, though, Mateo went on to inform me, was the only one of\nthe fourteen who really counted. She was neither the oldest nor the\nyoungest of the wives of the reigning ruler, but she had developed\na mind of her own which had made her supreme in the palace, and\nbesides, she was the only one of his wives who had borne a son to\nthe monarch. For her own talents, and as the mother of the heir,\nthe people did her willing homage.\n\nWhen I saw the royal cavalcade go past my door I had no idea I would\never have a chance to become more intimately acquainted with Her\nMajesty, but only a little while after that circumstances made it\npossible for me to see more of the royal family than had probably\nbeen the privilege of any other white man. How little thought I had,\nwhen the acquaintance began, of the strange experiences it would\neventually lead to!\n\nAt that time, in the course of collecting natural history\nspecimens, most of my time for three years was spent in the island\nof Culion. Having a large stock of drugs, for use in my work, and\nquite a lot of medicines, I had doctored Mateo and two or three\nother fellows who had worked for me, when they had been ill, with\nthe result that I found I had come to have a reputation for medical\nskill which sometimes was inconvenient. I had no idea how widely my\nfame had spread, though, until one morning Mateo came into my room\nand woke me, and with a face which expressed a good deal of anxiety,\ninformed me that I was sent for to come to the palace.\n\nI confess I felt some concern myself, and should have felt more if I\nhad had as much experience then as I had later, for one never knows\nwhat those three-quarters savage potentates may take it into their\nheads to do.\n\nWhen I found that I was sent for because the Sultan was ill,--ill unto\ndeath, the messenger had made Mateo believe,--and I was expected to\ndoctor him, I did not feel much more comfortable, for I much doubted if\nmy knowledge of diseases, and my assortment of medicines, were equal\nto coping with a serious case. If the Sultan died I would probably\nbe beheaded, either for not keeping him alive, or for killing him.\n\nIt was a great relief, then, when I reached the palace, and just\nbefore I entered the room where the sick monarch was, to hear him\nswearing vigorously, in a combination of the native and Spanish\nlanguages which was as picturesque as it was expressive.\n\nI found the man suffering from an acute attack of neuralgia, although\nhe did not know what was the matter with him. He had not been able\nto sleep for three days and nights, and the pain, all the way up and\ndown one side of his face had been so intense that he thought he was\ngoing to die, and almost hoped that he was. His head was tied up in a\nlot of cloths, not over clean, in which a dozen native doctor's charms\nhad been folded, until the bundle was as big as four heads ought to be.\n\nAs soon as I found out what was the matter I felt relieved, for I\nreckoned I could manage an attack of swelled head all right. I had\ndoctored the natives enough, already, to find out that they had no\nrespect for remedies which they could not feel, and so, going back\nto the house, I brought from there some extra strong liniment, some\ntincture of red pepper and a few powerful morphine pills.\n\nI gave my patient one of the pills the first thing, administering\nit in a glass of water with enough of the cayenne added to it so\nthat the mixture brought tears to his eyes, and then removing the\nlayers of cloth from his head, and gathering in as I did so, for my\ncollection of curiosities, the various charms which I uncovered, I\ngave his head a vigorous shampooing with the liniment, taking pains to\nsee that the liquor occasionally ran down into the Sultan's eyes. He\nsquirmed a good deal, but I kept on until I thought it must be about\ntime for the morphine to begin to take effect. I kept him on morphine\nand red pepper for three days, but when I let up on him he was cured,\nand my reputation was made.\n\nIt would have been too great a nuisance to have been endured, had it\nnot been that so high a degree of royal favor enabled me to pursue\nmy work with a degree of success which otherwise I could never have\nhoped for.\n\nAfter that I used to see a good deal of the palace life. Although\nnominally Mohammedans in religion, the inhabitants of these more\ndistant islands have little more than the name of the faith, and follow\nout few of its injunctions. As a result I was accorded a freedom about\nthe palace which would have been impossible in such an establishment\nin almost any other country.\n\nOne day the Sultan had invited me to dine with him. After the meal,\nwhile we were smoking, reclining in some cocoanut fibre hammocks\nswung in the shade of the palace court yard, I saw a man servant lead\na dog through the square, and down a narrow passage way through the\nrear of the palace.\n\n\"Would you like to see the 'Green Devil' eat?\" my host asked.\n\nI have translated the native words he used by the term \"green devil,\"\nbecause that represents the idea of the original better than any\nother words I know of, I had not the slightest conception as to who\nor what the individual referred to might be; but I said at once that\nI would be very glad indeed to see him eat.\n\nMy host swung out of the hammock,--he was a superbly strong and\nvigorous man, now that he was in health again,--and led the way\nthrough the passage. Following him I found myself in another court\nyard, larger than the first, and with more trees in it. Beneath one\nof these trees, in a stout cage of bamboo, was the biggest python\nI ever saw. He must have been fully twenty-five feet long. The cage\nwas large enough to give the snake a chance to move about in it, and\nwhen we came in sight he was rolling from one end to the other with\nhead erect, eyes glistening, and the light shimmering on his glossy\nscales in a way which made it easy to see why he had been given his\nname. I learned later that he had not been fed for a month, and that\nhe would not be fed again until another month had passed. Like all\nof his kind he would touch none but live food.\n\nThe wretched dog, who seemed to guess the fate in store for him,\nhung back in the rope tied about his neck, and crouched flat to the\nground, too frightened even to whine.\n\nThe servant unlocked a door in the side of the cage and thrust the\npoor beast in. I am not ashamed to say that I turned my head away. It\nwas only a dog, but it might have been a human being, so far as the\nreptile, or the half-savage man at my side, would have cared.\n\nWhen I looked again, the dog was only a crushed mass of bones and\nflesh, about which the snake was still winding and tightening coil\nafter coil.\n\n\"We need not wait,\" the Sultan said. \"It will be an hour before he\nwill swallow the food. You can come out again.\"\n\nI did as he suggested. It was a wonder to me, as it is to every one,\nhow a snake's throat can be distended enough to swallow whole an object\nso large as this dog, but in some way the reptile had accomplished the\nfeat. The meal over, the huge creature had coiled down as still almost\nas if dead. He would lie in that way, now, they told me, for days.\n\nIt was while I stood watching the snake that Ahmeya came through\nthe square, leading her boy by the hand. The apartments of the royal\nwives were built around this inner yard. This was the first time I\nhad seen the heir to the throne. He was a handsome boy, and looked\nlike his mother. Ahmeya was tall, for a native woman, and carried\nherself with a dignity which showed that she felt the honor of her\nposition. Mateo had told me that she had a decided will of her own,\nand, so the palace gossips said, ruled the establishment, and her\nassociate sultanas, with an unbending hand.\n\nIt was not very long after I had seen the green devil eat that\nMateo told me there had been another wedding at the palace. Mateo\nwas an indefatigable news-gatherer, and an incorrigible gossip. As\nthe society papers would have expressed it, this wedding had been \"a\nvery quiet affair.\" The Sultan had happened to see a Visayan girl of\nuncommon beauty, on one of the smaller islands, one day, had bought\nher of her father for two water buffalos, and had installed her at\nthe palace as wife number fifteen.\n\nFor the time being the new-comer was said to be the royal favorite,\na condition of affairs which caused the other fourteen wives as little\nconcern as their objections, if they had expressed any, would probably\nhave caused their royal husband. So far as Ahmeya was concerned,\nshe never minded a little thing like that, but included the last\narrival in the same indifferent toleration which she had extended to\nher predecessors.\n\nI saw the new wife only once.--I mean,--yes I mean that.--I saw her as\nthe king's wife only once. She was a handsome woman, with a certain\ninsolent disdain of those about her which indicated that she knew\nher own charms, and perhaps counted too much on their being permanent.\n\nThat summer my work took me away from the island. I went to Manila,\nand eventually to America. When I finally returned to Culion a year\nhad passed.\n\nI had engaged Mateo, before I left, to look out for such property\nas I left behind, and had retained my old house. I found him waiting\nfor me, and with everything in good order. That is one good thing to\nbe said about the natives. An imagined wrong or insult may rankle in\ntheir minds for months, until they have a chance to stab you in the\nback. They will lie to you at times with the most unblushing nerve,\noften when the truth would have served their ends so much better that\nit seems as if they must have been doing mendacious gymnastics simply\nto keep themselves in practice; but they will hardly ever steal. If\nthey do, it will be sometime when you are looking squarely at them,\ncarrying a thing off from under your very nose with a cleverness\nwhich they seem to think, and you can hardly help feel yourself,\nmakes them deserve praise instead of blame. I have repeatedly left\nmuch valuable property with them, as I did in this case with Mateo,\nand have come back to find every article just as I had left it.\n\nMateo was glad to see me. \"Oh Senor,\" he began, before my clothes were\nfairly changed, and while he was settling my things in my bed room,\n\"there is so much to tell you.\"\n\nI knew he would be bursting with news of what had happened during my\nabsence. \"Such goings on,\" he continued, folding my travelling clothes\ninto a tin trunk, where the white ants could not get at them. \"You\nnever heard the likes of it.\"\n\nI am translating very freely, for I have noticed that the thoughts\nexpressed by the Philippine gossip are very similar to those of his\nfellow in America, or Europe, or anywhere else, no matter how much\nthe words may differ.\n\n\"The new Sultana, the handsome Visayan girl, has given birth to a son,\nand has so bewitched the Sultan by her good looks and craftiness\nthat he has decreed her son, and not Ahmeya's, to be the heir to\nthe throne. She rules the palace now, and when her servants bear her\nthrough the streets the people bow down to her.\" He added, with a look\nbehind him to see that no one overheard, \"Because they dare not do\notherwise. In their hearts they love Ahmeya, and hate this vain woman.\"\n\n\"How does Ahmeya take it?\" I asked.\n\n\"Hardly, people think, although she makes no cry. She goes not through\nthe streets of the town, now, but stays shut in her own rooms, with\nher women and the boy.\"\n\nA furious beating against the bamboo walls of my sleeping room,\nand wild cries from some one on the ground outside, awoke me one\nmorning when I had been back in Culion less than a week. The house\nin which I slept, like most of the native houses in the Philippines,\nwas built on posts, several feet above the ground, for the sake of\ncoolness and as a protection against snakes and such vermin.\n\nIt was very early, not yet sunrise. A servant of the Sultan's, gray\nwith fright, was pounding on the walls of the house with a long spear\nto wake me, begging me, when I opened the lattice, to come to the\npalace at once.\n\nI thought the monarch must have had some terrible attack, and\nwondered what it could be, but while we were hurrying up the street\nthe messenger managed to make me understand that the Sultan was not\nat the palace at all, but gone the day before on board the royal\nproa for a state visit to a neighboring island from which he exacted\nyearly tribute. Later I learned that he had tried to have the Visayan\nwoman go with him, but that she had wilfully refused to go. What\nwas the matter at the palace the ruler being gone, I could not make\nout. When I asked this of the man who had come for me, he fell into\nsuch a palsy of fear that he could say nothing. When I came to know,\nlater, that he was the night guard at the palace, and remembered what\nhe must have seen, I did not wonder.\n\nAt the palace no one was astir. The man had come straight for me,\nstopping to rouse no one else. I had saved the Sultan's life. At\nleast he thought so. Might I not do even more?\n\nMy guide took me straight through the first court yard, and down\nthe narrow passage into the inner yard, around which were built\nthe apartments of the woman. Ahmeya, I knew, lived in the rooms at\none end of the square. The man led me towards the opposite end of\nthe enclosure. Beside an open door he stood aside for me to enter,\nsaying, as he did so, \"Senor, help us.\"\n\nThe sun had risen, now, and shining full upon a lattice in the upper\nwall, flooded the room with a soft clear light.\n\nThe body of the Visayan woman, or rather what had been a body, lay\non the floor in the center of the room, a shapeless mass of crushed\nbones and flesh. An enormous python lay coiled in one corner. His\nmottled skin glistened in the morning light, but he did not move,\nand his eyes were tight shut, as were those of the \"green devil\"\nafter I had seen him feed.\n\nI looked backward, across the court yard. The door of the big bamboo\ncage beneath the trees was open. I turned to the room again and looked\nonce more. I knew now why the night guard's face was ash-colored,\nand why he could not speak.\n\nFor the child of the Visayan woman I could not see.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"OUR LADY OF PILAR\"\n\n\n\"How very singular! What do you suppose they are doing?\"\n\n\"I'm sure I don't know. The American mind is unequal to grappling\nwith the problem of what the natives are doing out here, most of the\ntime. They seem to be praying. Or are they having a thanksgiving?\"\n\n\"I don't know. All women, too!\"\n\nThe young American woman and the officer who was her escort halted\ntheir horses to watch better the group of people of whom they had been\nspeaking. The officer was a lieutenant of the American forces stationed\nin Zamboanga, the oldest and most important city in Mindanao, the\nheadquarters of the United States military district in the Philippines\nknown as the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. The young woman was\nthe daughter of one of the older officers of the department, just\ncome to Zamboanga the day before, and in this morning's ride having\nher first chance to see the strange old city to which her father had\nbeen transferred from Manila a few weeks before.\n\nIn the course of this ride the young people had reached Fort Pilar, at\none end of the town, a weather-beaten old fortification built years and\nyears before by the Spaniards as a protection against their implacable\nfoes, the Moros, who waged continual warfare against them from the\nsouthern islands of the archipelago. Circling the stone walls of the\nfort the riders had come upon a group of as many as fifty Visayan\nwomen kneeling on the ground, their faces turned devoutly toward a\nstone tablet let into the walls.\n\nAn American soldier was doing sentry duty not far away. \"Wait here,\nMiss Allenthorne,\" Lieutenant Chickering said, \"and I'll find out\nfrom that man over there what they are doing. He's been here long\nenough so that probably he knows by this time.\" The officer cantered\nhis pony over to the sentry's station. The American girl, left to\nherself, slipped down from her pony, and hooking the bridle rein into\nher elbow, walked a little nearer to the women. They did not seem to\nmind her in the least, and one of them--a handsome young woman near\nher--when she looked up and saw that the stranger was an American,\nsmiled, and said something in a language which Miss Allenthorne did\nnot understand; but from the expression on her face the American felt\nsure that what the woman said was meant as a welcome.\n\nSomething which this Visayan woman did a moment later excited Miss\nAllenthorne's curiosity to a still higher pitch. The native woman drew\na small photograph from the folds of her \"camisa,\" and kissed it. Then\nshe put it down on the ground between herself and the wall, and turned\nto the tablet above it a face lighted with a radiance which any woman\nseeing would have known could have come from love alone. When she had\nfinished, and had risen to her feet, she saw that the young American\n\"senorita\" was still watching her.\n\nThe two woman had been born with the earth between them, and with\ncenturies of difference in traditions and training. Neither could\nunderstand the words which the other spoke, but when their eyes met\nthere went from the heart of each to the heart of the other a message\nwhich did not require words to make itself understood.\n\nWith a beautiful grace of manner and expression, the Visayan went\nto the other woman, and again speaking as if she thought her words\ncould be understood, held out the picture which she had kissed,\nfor the stranger to look at.\n\nThe photograph was that of a young American officer, in a lieutenant's\nuniform.\n\n\n\nGrace Allenthorne and her mother had lived in Manila for several\nmonths. As the daughter of one of the oldest and most highly respected\nofficers in the service, and as a beautiful and attractive young woman,\nshe had naturally been popular in the life of the military element\nof Manila's society. If she had herself been asked to describe the\nsituation in Manila, Grace would have said that she liked no one\nofficer better than another. They had all been \"so nice\" to her. With\nthe exception of two of their number, however, the officers with whom\nshe had ridden and talked and danced, would have said, if they had\nexpressed their opinion of the matter, that they were all out of it\nexcept Lieutenant Chickering and Lieutenant Day; and some of them,\namong themselves, possibly may have made quiet bets as to which one\nof these two men would win in the end.\n\nThen there came one of those official wavings of red tape in the air,\nwhich army officers' families learn to dread as signals of approaching\ntrouble, and Colonel Allenthorne was transferred from Luzon to\nMindanao; and among the troops sent with him were the companies of\nthe rival lieutenants.\n\nWhen the General sent back word that Zamboanga was a quiet city, with a\nfair climate and comfortable quarters, his wife and daughter followed\nhim. If either of the young officers flattered himself that Grace was\ncoming on his account, and that he was going to be made aware of her\npreference for himself on her arrival in Mindanao, he was disappointed.\n\nLieutenant Chickering was on duty when Miss Allenthorne arrived,\nand she devoted two hours that evening to hearing Lieutenant Day\ndescribe the city as he had found it. The next morning Lieutenant\nDay was on duty, and she went to ride with Lieutenant Chickering,\npossibly to learn if the information she had been favoured with the\nnight before had been correct.\n\n\n\nLieutenant Chickering cantered back from the sentry's post. Finding\nhis companion dismounted, he jumped down from his own pony and came\nto join her. The native woman had gone her way toward the city before\nhe returned, smiling a good-bye to Miss Allenthorne when she found\nthat her words were not understood, and hiding the photograph in her\nbosom as she turned to go.\n\n\"I've found out all about it, Miss Allenthorne,\" the Lieutenant\nexclaimed.\n\n\"There is a story which it seems the natives believe, that years ago\nthere was once, where we now stand, a river which ran down past the\nfort and emptied into the sea. To give access to this river there\nwas then a gate in the wall of the fort, directly opposite where we\nare now. Over the gate was a marble statue of a saint, who was called\n'Our Lady of Pilar.'\n\n\"One night a soldier who was on sentry duty at the gate saw a white\nfigure pass out before him. He challenged it, and when he got no answer\nchallenged again and again. When the third summons brought no response,\nhe aimed his gun at the figure and fired.\n\n\"In the morning this sentry was found at his post, stone dead, and the\nstatue of the saint was gone. What was still more strange, the river\nwhich had always flowed past the gate had dried up in the night, and\nhas never been seen since. After a time they built up the gate into\na solid part of the wall, as you see it now; because as there was\nthen no river here, there was no need of the gate. This had hardly\nbeen done when the tablet which we see there now made its appearance\nmiraculously. All these strange manifestations attracted so much\nattention to the place that this shrine was set up here, and now for\nyears it has been a favourite place for devout worshippers--especially\nwomen--to come to pray and to give thanks for blessings which they\nhave received.\n\n\"It's interesting, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Very,\" assented Miss Allenthorne, when the officer had finished;\nand then she added, almost immediately, \"Don't you think it's getting\nvery warm? Wouldn't we better ride back now?\"\n\n\"Just as you say,\" the officer answered. Then he helped her to mount,\nmounted his own horse, and they rode home.\n\nThat evening Miss Allenthorne was invisible. When Lieutenant Day\ncalled, her mother explained that the young woman had a headache,\npossibly from riding too far in the sun that morning.\n\nAlone in her room the young woman heard the officer's inquiry and\nher mother's excuses, for the bamboo walls of a Philippine house let\nconversation be heard from one end of the house to the other. Crushing\nin both hands the handkerchief which she had been dipping into iced\nwater to bind about her forehead, she flung it impatiently from her,\nthinking bitterly to herself as she did so how foolish it was to bind\nup one's head when it was really one's heart that was aching.\n\nFor alone in her darkened room that afternoon, the young woman had\nacknowledged to herself--what perhaps up to that time had been almost\nas much of a problem to her as to other people--which one of the young\nofficers she really cared for. She knew now that the love of Lieutenant\nDay meant everything to her, and the love of the other man nothing.\n\nAnd it was Lieutenant Day's picture which she had seen the Visayan\nwoman kiss.\n\nOne day General Allenthorne sat on the verandah of his house with\nan American acquaintance, the agent of a business firm, who had been\nsent to the Philippine Islands to see what opportunities there might\nbe for trade there.\n\nSome women walked along the street below the house, carrying heavy\nwater jars poised on their heads.\n\n\"Queer country, isn't it?\" said the visitor.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the General. \"A body never knows what may happen to\nhim. Probably those women we see down there are slaves. Seeing them\nmade me think of a funny thing I heard of today, which happened to\none of my men a little while ago.\n\n\"A young officer hired a native man for a servant. One day the fellow\ncame to the Lieutenant in a great state of mind, begging the officer\nto help him. It seemed he had a sweetheart who was a Visayan slave\ngirl owned by a Moro. The man who owned the girl was going to leave\nthe city and take all his property, including this slave girl, with\nhim. Pedro--that was the officer's boy--wanted 'the great American\nSenor' to say she should not go. Some of the natives seem to have\nthe most wonderful confidence in the power of the Americans to do\nanything and everything.\n\n\"The officer told his boy he had no power to prevent the man's moving\nand taking his property with him; but he happened to ask how much\nthe girl was worth. How much do you think the fellow said? Fifteen\ndollars! And he went on to explain that this was an unusually high\nprice, he knew, but that this girl was young and handsome and clever\nat work. Of course he thought so, for he was in love with her.\n\n\"Well, I suppose the Lieutenant was flush, or felt generous, or perhaps\nsomething had happened to put him in an unusually serene frame of\nmind. He handed over fifteen dollars, and told Pedro to go and buy\nthe girl and marry her; which he did, and has been the happiest man\nalive ever since. He is really grateful, too, and there isn't another\nofficer in the service that is waited on as Lieutenant Day is. The\nfunniest part of it all is, though, that he just found out a day or\ntwo ago, that in his gratitude Pedro had stolen one of his master's\nphotographs to give to the Visayan girl he had married, so that she\ncould see what their benefactor looked like, and she has been going out\nwith it every day to an altar, or shrine, or something of that sort in\nthe wall of an old fort here, where the native women go to worship,\nto pray to the saint there to shower all kinds of blessings on the\nAmerican Senor who brought all this happiness to her and her husband.\n\n\"The boys have guyed Day so much about it, since they found it out,\nthat he swears he will discharge the man, and have him hauled up for\nstealing the picture into the bargain. If he does, the woman will be\nlikely to think that there is something the matter with the saint,\nI reckon, or that her prayers havn't found favour.\"\n\nFor once the wicker walls of a bamboo house had a merit all their\nown. At least that was what a certain young woman thought, when she\ncould not help hearing this conversation in the room in which she\nhad shut herself for the afternoon.\n\nThat night at dinner Miss Grace Allenthorne, was so radiant that even\nher father noticed it.\n\n\"What have you been doing, Grace?\" he said. \"What's the reason you\nfeel so well, tonight? I havn't seen you look so fine for a month.\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing, father,\" said the girl. \"I don't know of any special\nreason. I think that you just imagine it.\"\n\nWhich was, of course, a very wrong thing for her to say; for she knew\nperfectly well what the reason was.\n\nWhile they were still at table a messenger came post haste for General\nAllenthorne, with word that he was wanted at once at headquarters. He\nwas absent nearly all night.\n\nIn the morning it was known that an outpost in the northern part of\nthe island had been surprised and almost captured. The enemy was still\nin force about the place and threatening it. A loyal native had crept\nthrough the lines to bring word and ask for help. A relief force had\nbeen made up and sent at once. Lieutenant Day was among those who\nvolunteered to go, and had gone.\n\nTen days of horrible anxiety followed. Then word came that the\nrelief party had reached the post in time. The forces surrounding\nthe place had been scattered, and the post was safe. There had been\na sharp fight, though, and among those who had been badly wounded\nwas Lieutenant Day.\n\nOf course he got well. No man could help it, with four such nurses\nas Mrs. Allenthorne and Mrs. Allenthorne's daughter Grace, and Pedro\nand Pedro's Visayan wife Anita.\n\nJust what Grace told her mother, which led that worthy person to\nbecome responsible for the young officer's recovery, no one ever\nknew except the two women themselves, but in addition to being a\nmotherly-hearted woman, Mrs. Allenthorne was a soldier's daughter as\nwell as a soldier's wife, so perhaps it was not necessary to explain\nso many things to her as it would have been to some people.\n\nNobody ever knew--or at least never told--what explanation the young\nwoman made to the Lieutenant, when he came back to consciousness\nand found her helping to care for him. Perhaps she did not\nexplain. Possibly the explanations made themselves, or else none\nwere needed.\n\nAt any rate, the young man got well, and since then he has been\nknown to say--although this was in the strictest confidence to a very\nparticular person--that he should always regard the Visayan woman's\nprayers before \"Our Lady of Pilar\" with the profoundest gratitude,\nbecause the greatest blessing of his whole life had come to him\nthrough this woman's praying for him outside the walls of the old fort.\n\n\n\n\n\nA QUESTION OF TIME\n\n\n\"The native pilot who is to take the gunboat Utica around from Ilo Ilo\nto Capiz is a traitor. I have just discovered indisputable proofs of\nthat fact. He has agreed to run the gunboat aground on a ledge near\none of the Gigantes Islands, on which a force of insurgents is to\nbe hidden, large enough to overpower the men on the gunboat in her\ndisabled condition. Do not let her leave Ilo Ilo until you have a\nnew pilot, and one you are sure of.\n\n\"Demauny.\"\n\n\nCaptain James Demauny, of the American army in the Philippine Islands,\nfolded the dispatch which he had just written, and sealed it. Then,\ncalling an orderly to him he said, \"Send Sergeant Johnson to me.\"\n\nCaptain Demauny's company was then at Pasi, a small inland town in\nthe island of Panay. He had been dispatched by the American general\ncommanding at Ilo Ilo, the chief seaport of Panay, to march to\nCapiz, a seaport town on the opposite side of the island, to assist\nfrom the land side a small force of Americans besieged there by the\nnatives, while the gunboat Utica was to steam around the northeastern\npromontory of the island and cooperate from the water side of the town,\nin its relief.\n\nThe distance across the island was about fifty miles, while that\nby water, by the route which the Utica must traverse, was about two\nhundred miles. Captain Demauny, starting first, had covered half the\nmarch laid out for him, without incident, until, halting at Pasi,\nhalf way across the island and well up in the mountains, he had been\nso fortunate as to obtain the information which he was about to send\nback to the commander at Ilo Ilo. Panay had been, up to this time, one\nof the most quiet islands in the group. He had met with no opposition\nin his march, so far, and it was believed that the only natives on\nthe island who were under arms were those living in the northeastern\npart of the territory. It was a force of these that had invested Capiz.\n\n\"Sergeant Johnson, sir,\" the orderly reported.\n\n\"Very well. Send him in.\"\n\nA young man, wearing a faded brown duck uniform, tightly buttoned\nleggings, and a wide-rimmed gray hat, entered the tent.\n\n\"I have sent for you, sergeant,\" said Captain Demauny, \"for two\nreasons. One is that I want a man who is brave, and one whom I\ncan trust.\"\n\nThe sergeant bent his head slightly, in acknowledgement of the implied\ncompliment, his cheeks looking a trifle darker shade of brown, where\nthe blood had flushed the skin beneath its double deep coat of tan.\n\n\"The other reason,\" the officer went on, \"is that I want a man of\nwhose muscle and endurance as a runner, and whose skill as a boatman,\nI have had some proof.\"\n\nIn spite of the difference in rank, and the seriousness of the\nsituation, which the officer knew and the man guessed, the two men\nlooked at each other and smiled. For one was a Harvard man, and the\nother had come from Yale.\n\n\"The gunboat Utica is to leave Ilo Ilo at midnight, tonight. It is\nof the very greatest importance that this dispatch,\" handing him\nthe letter, \"be delivered to the American general at Ilo Ilo before\nthe vessel gets under way. I entrust it to you, to see that it is\ndelivered.\n\n\"You ought to have no trouble in getting there in ample season,\" the\ncaptain continued, spreading out a map so that the other man could see\nit. \"I cannot spare any men for an escort for you, because my force\nis already far too small for what we have to do. Instead of following\nback the road we took in coming here--which would be impassable for\nany one but a man on foot, even if I had a horse for you, which I\nhave not--I think you can make better time by another route.\n\n\"Six miles from here,\" pointing to the map, \"you will reach the same\nriver which we crossed at a point farther up the stream. Get a boat\nthere and go down the river some fifteen or twenty miles, until you\ncome to a native village built at the head of steep falls in the\nstream. I am told that until you reach there the river is navigable,\nand that the current is so swift much of the way that you can make\nrapid progress. At that village you will have to leave your boat,\nbut from that place you will find a clearly marked path to Ilo Ilo.\n\n\"The quicker you start, the better; and, as I have told you, I trust\nit to you to see that the general has the dispatch before the Utica\nleaves port.\"\n\nIt was ten o'clock in the forenoon when the sergeant had been sent\nfor to come to headquarters. Half an hour later he had started, the\nletter tightly wrapped in a bit of rubber blanket before he had placed\nit inside his jacket, for he had already had enough experience with\nthe native boats to know how unstable they would be in the current\nof a rapid river.\n\nThe five miles from Pasi to the river were easily made, in spite of\nthe fact that it was midday, for there was a good path, which, for\nnearly all the distance, was shaded by lofty trees. When he reached\nthe river the sergeant bought from a man whom he found there a native\n\"banca,\" for three dollars, a sum of money which would make a native\nrich. In this boat he started on his voyage down the river.\n\nA native \"banca\" is a \"dug-out,\" a canoe hollowed out from the trunk\nof a tree. It is propelled and guided by a short, broad-bladed paddle,\nand is as unstable as the lightest racing shell, although not any\nwhere nearly so easy to send through the water.\n\nIt was unfortunate for the sergeant that he did not know--what\nhe could not, since the map did not show it--that the place where\nthe path touched the river first was on the upper side of a huge\n\"ox-bow\" bend. If he had kept on by land, a third of a mile's walk\nfarther through the swamp would have brought him to the river again,\nat a point to reach which by water, following the river's windings,\nhe would have to paddle three or four miles.\n\nAnother thing which was unfortunate; that he could not know the\nnature of the man from whom he bought the \"banca,\" any better than\nhe could know the nature of the river, and so did not suspect that he\nwas dealing with a \"tulisane,\" to whom the little bag of money which\nthe officer had shown when he had paid for the boat had looked like\nboundless wealth, to see which was to plan to possess.\n\nA \"tulisane\" is to the Philippine Islands what a brigand is to Italy,\na bandit to Spain, a highwayman to England, and a train-robber to\nAmerica; a man who lives by his wits, and stops at no means to gain\nhis object. The \"banca,\" by the way, was stolen property.\n\nThis man would have stabbed the American soldier when he stooped to\nstep cautiously into the slippery boat, and taken the purse from his\ndead body, had he not been far-sighted enough to see that the purse\nmight be had, and much more money beside.\n\nThe \"tulisane\" knew that the American soldiers were at Pasi. Although\nhe did not find it best to come to town himself, in general, he never\nhad any trouble finding men to go there for him, and bring him news,\nor carry messages. No bandit leader who promptly carves an ear off the\nman who does his errands grudgingly is half so feared as a Filipino\n\"tulisane\" whom his fellows know to be the possessor of a powerful\n\"anting-anting.\" And this man's \"anting-anting\" was famous for the\nwonders which it had done.\n\nThe \"tulisane\" knew that the American soldiers were at Pasi; and that\nthe man who led them lived in one of the white tents they had set\nup there. This man in the brown clothes, which looked so tight that\nit made the Filipino tired just to look at them, could be no common\nsoldier, else he would not be paying three big silver dollars for a\n\"banca.\" If anything was to happen to this man--that is if he was to\ndisappear, and still not be dead, and the officer in the white tent\nshould know of it--the leader of the white soldiers would no doubt\npay much money to have his man brought safely back. Consequently the\nman in the brown clothes, with the fat money purse, should be made\nto disappear.\n\nThat was the way the \"tulisane\" reasoned. It was the three dollars,\nthe rest of the money in the purse, and the ransom which the leader\nof the white men would pay, which influenced the Filipino. It was\nnot that the Asiatic highwayman cared a leaf of a forest tree for\npatriotism. So long as he got the money, white men and brown men were\nall alike to him, American soldiers and Filipino insurgents.\n\nSo the native, going into the forest, a little way back from the river,\nlooked until he found a tree the roots of which growing out from well\nup the trunk had made a sort of great wooden drum. Taking a stout\nstick of hard wood which had been leaned against the tree,--he had been\nthere before,--he struck the hollow tree three heavy blows, the sound\nof which went echoing off through the forest. Then the man listened.\n\nNot long; for from far, very far away, there came an answer, one blow,\nand then, after a moment's pause, two more. The drum beats which\nfollowed, and the pauses for the faint replies, were like listening\nto a giant's telegraph.\n\nThe soldier, paddling steadily out around the river's winding course,\nheard the noise and wondered curiously what it was. The natives who\nheard it said, \"The trees are talking,\" meaning that some one was\nmaking them talk. To the \"tulisane\" the sounds meant that he was\nbringing his partner to help him, just as at night the far-off,\nlong-drawn cry of a panther calls the creature's mate to share\nthe prey.\n\nSergeant Johnson, still paddling, after he would have said that with\nthe help of the current he had put four good miles of the river behind\nhim, saw a tiny ripple in the water ahead of the boat, but in a stream\nso rapid thought nothing of it.\n\nAn instant later a cocoanut fibre rope, stretched taut across the\nriver and just below the surface of the water, had turned his skittish\nboat bottom upward. The \"tulisane,\" you see, had seen the sergeant's\nrevolver, and thought wisest to attack him wet.\n\nDrenched, blowing for breath, before he knew what had happened, the\nsoldier found himself dragged to the bank, disarmed, robbed, his hands\nbound behind him, and his feet hobbled. He could speak Spanish and\nso could the \"tulisanes.\" Words told him that his captors, only two\nin number, meant him to march, hobbled as he was, along a path which\nthey pointed out; but it took several sharp pricks from a \"campilan\"\nwhich one of them carried, to make him start. For the path led away\nfrom the river, away from Pasi, from Ilo Ilo and the Utica, which he\nwould have given his life itself rather than fail to reach in time.\n\nOnly a little way back from the river the path began to leave the low\nland, mounting up to the hills among which the \"tulisanes\" had their\ncamp. Sometimes one of the brigands led the way, with the prisoner\nbetween them, sometimes both drove him before them, secure in the\nknowledge that in his helpless condition he could not escape. The\ncaptain's message, in its rubber case, still lay undisturbed and dry\nwithin the messenger's jacket. For that he was glad, although his heart\nsank as every step carried him farther away from the destination of\nthe dispatch, and from the chance of its being delivered in season.\n\nThe means which providence uses to accomplish the ends which it desires\nare marvellous, and those of us who do not believe in providence say,\n\"a strange coincidence.\"\n\nThe day before, back among the mountains of Panay, a little old Montese\nwoman, who had never heard of God, or of America, and whose only dress\nhad been thirty yards of fine bamboo plaiting coiled round and round\nher body, had died.\n\nWhen the dead body had been set properly upright beneath the tiny hut\nwhich had been the woman's home, and food and drink placed beside\nit for the long journey which the spirit was to take, the hut was\nabandoned, as is the custom of the tribe, and the men of the family,\nthe woman's sons and nephews, started out with freshly sharpened\nlances and \"mechetes.\"\n\nFor this is the only religion of the Monteses; that no one must be left\nto go alone upon the long journey. And so, when one of a family dies,\nthe men relatives do not stay their hands until some one,--the first\nperson met,--is slain by them to go on the journey as an escort. Only\nif they seek three days through the wood, and find no human being,\nthen, after the third day, a beast may be slain, and the law of blood\nstill be satisfied.\n\nThe sons and nephews of the Montese woman had marched for thirty-six\nhours, and the steel of their weapons had not been dimmed by any\nmoisture other than the dew, when, suddenly rounding a turn in the\nmountain path, they met three men.\n\nThe first of the three at that moment was the \"tulisane\" leader,\nand him, in thirty seconds, they had driven six lances through. His\npartner, with a scream of terror, dashed into the trackless forest and\ndisappeared. He need not. The demand for a sacrifice was appeased,\nand the men who had killed the \"tulisane\" cared as little for his\ncompanion as they did for the white man who had been his prisoner. All\nthey wanted, now, was to get back to the Montese country, and to\nthe new huts which their women would have been building in their\nabsence. The white man's words they could not understand, but his\ngestures were intelligible, and before they parted, he to hurry back\ntowards the river and they towards the Montese country, they had\ncut the cords which bound the soldier's hands and hobbled his feet,\nand thus had left him free to make such haste as he could.\n\nEven then the afternoon was well nigh gone when the messenger\nreached the river at the place where he had been dragged from it;\nand practically all his journey was yet before him, wearied as he was.\n\nFor once, though, fortune favored him. His dug-out had grounded on a\nsandy island hardly a dozen rods below where it had been overturned,\nand swimming out to it, he soon had righted it and was on his way\nagain.\n\nAt first the forest on each side was a tropic swamp. Then the river\ngrew more swift, with here and there rapids in which it took all his\nskill with his clumsy paddle to keep his boat from being upset. The\nground had begun to grow higher here, and back from the banks there\nwere rank growths of hemp and palm trees.\n\nA few miles farther, and he was in the mountains, the river\nwinding about like a lane of water between walls which were almost\nperpendicular, and covered with the densest, bright green foliage,\nin which parrots croaked hoarsely and monkeys chattered sleepily as\nthey settled themselves for the night. The walls of the living canon\ngrew narrower and steeper. The river here was as still as a lake, and\nthe current so sluggish that only his labour with the paddle sent the\n\"banca\" forward. It grew dark quickly and fast, down in the bottom\nof this mountain gorge, and by and by the twilight glow on the tops\nof the banks, when he would peer up at them, grew fainter.\n\nThe soldier strained his eyes to look ahead. Would the living green\ncanons of that river never end? It was dark now, except that the stars\nin the narrow line of sky above the gorge sent down light enough to\nmake the surface of the water gleam faintly and mark out his course.\n\nHe drew his paddle from the water, and holding it so that the drops\nwhich trickled from it would make no noise, listened breathlessly for\nthe sound of the falls which marked the site of the village he was\nto find, and at it leave his boat for the land again. A night bird\nscreamed in the forest, and then there was utter silence, until a\nsoft splash in the water beside him revealed the ugly head of a huge\nblack crocodile following the dug-out.\n\nBy and by the stars in the lane of sky above grew dim, and a stronger\nlight, which faintly illuminated the river gorge, told him that\nthe full moon had risen, although not yet high enough to light his\ncourse directly. After a time the gorge grew wider and its sides less\nsteep and high; and then, at last, he heard the roar of the falls,\nand found the village, and had landed.\n\nWhat time it might be now the sergeant did not dare to guess. A sleepy\nnative pointed out to him the path, stared, when the stranger said\nhe must hurry on to Ilo Ilo that night, and flatly refusing to be\nhis guide, went back to bed.\n\nThe forest path was rankly wet with night dew, and dimly lighted\nby the moon. The soldier hurried forward, only to find that in his\nhaste he had missed the main path. Slowly and anxiously he retraced\nhis way until he found the right road again, and then went forward\nslowly enough now to go with care.\n\nAnd so, at last, he saw before him the city of Ilo Ilo, only to learn,\nwhen he was challenged by a picket, that it was one o'clock and that\nthe Utica had steamed out of the harbour an hour before.\n\nUseless as he feared the dispatch might be now, Sergeant Johnson\ninsisted that it be delivered at once, and that he be given an\nopportunity to ask to be allowed to tell the general why he was so\nlate. When that officer, roused from sleep, had read the dispatch and\nheard the story briefly, for there were other things to be thought of\nthen, he told the young man, \"You have done well,\" for he knew the\nways of Filipino \"tulisanes,\" \"and after all perhaps you may not be\ntoo late.\"\n\nBut before he explained what he meant by the last part of his sentence,\nthe general called for one of his aids, and as soon as the man could\nbe brought, hastily gave him certain orders with instructions that\nthey were to be communicated to the officers whom they concerned,\nas quickly as was possible, regardless of how sound asleep those\ngentlemen might be.\n\nThen, because he was at heart a kindly man, and because he felt that\nthe water-soaked, thorn-torn soldier before him, pale with weariness\nand anxiety, had done his best, the general told him what was the\nnature of the dispatch, and why, even then, he might yet be in time.\n\nFor by another of the fortunate dispensations of providence, or if\nyou please, by a strange coincidence, that very afternoon another\nAmerican gunboat had unexpectedly steamed into the harbour of Ilo\nIlo and dropped anchor.\n\nThe general had sent messages to the commander of the Ogdensburgh,\nexplaining the situation to him, and as soon as that officer understood\nthe matter he replied, \"You did just right.\"\n\n\"We will start in pursuit of the Utica as soon as we can get up steam,\nand do our best to overtake her.\"\n\nCould they overtake her? That was the question. She had a good three\nhours start, for daylight was breaking before the Ogdensburgh could be\ngot under way, and the registered speed of the boats was about equal.\n\nAt any rate there was doubt enough as to what the result would be\nso that when the Ogdensburgh reached the town of Concepcion, fifty\nmiles up the coast from Ilo Ilo, and the Utica was seen to be lying\nat anchor in the harbour there, the commander of the Ogdensburgh said\nwords which were as thankful as they were emphatic. For just beyond\nConcepcion harbour began the narrow channels of the Gigantes Islands,\nin some of which he had feared to find the gunboat wrecked.\n\nWhen the captain of the Utica came to know why he was pursued, and what\nhe had escaped, he was as grateful for the faulty cylinder head which\nhad delayed him as, the night before, he had been exasperated by it.\n\nThe pilot, charged with his treachery, proved at once that the charge\nwas true, by turning traitor again and offering to buy the safety\nof his own neck by guiding the boats to where they could shell the\nwoods in which the natives were hidden.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF MT. APO\n\n\nFrom the deck of any vessel passing up the southeast coast of Mindanao,\nthe voyager can see the gold-crowned summit of Apo, rising like a\ngilded cone high above the dense vegetation of the island at its base.\n\nNext to Luzon, on which the city of Manila is situated, Mindanao is\nthe largest of all the islands of the Philippine archipelago. Lying as\nit does far to the southeast, and near the Sulu Islands, the Moros,\nas the venturesome Sulus are called, invaded Mindanao more than two\nhundred years ago, and gradually crept farther and farther along the\ncoasts and up the river valleys, waging intermittent warfare against\nthe Visayans who had come from the west to settle on the island,\nand against the natives that lived inland, and keeping up constant\nrelentless war upon the Spaniards who claimed the sovereignty of\nthe island. There are few islands of its size in the world where\nso many different kinds of people live, and perhaps no other where\nso many wild deeds have been done. Until within the last two years,\na man's will there has been likely to be his only law.\n\nNature has done much for the island. The soil is of incalculable\nrichness. Fruits and grains grow luxuriantly where the ground is\nturned over, and as if to make the natives laugh at the need of such\nlabour the forests yield fruits and nuts with lavish generosity. Deer\nand buffalo run wild, and numberless varieties of pigeons live in\nthe trees.\n\nMount Apo, in the extreme southeastern part of the island, and almost\nupon the coast, is the loftiest mountain in the archipelago. Its\nheight is usually estimated to be not far from ten thousand feet. A\nspiral of steam drifting up from the sulphur-crowned summit of the\nmountain shows that fires still linger in its bosom, but for many\nyears it has been quiet, and at no time does history show that it has\nbroken forth in fury to wreak the awful destruction that is written\ndown against some of the volcanoes of these islands.\n\nMy work as a naturalist had several times brought me where I could\nsee Apo, and each time I had been more and more fascinated by it,\nand more desirous of climbing to its top.\n\nWhen I began to talk of making the ascent, though, I found it would\nbe no easy matter. Not only were the sides of the mountain said to\nbe steep, and the forests which clothed them impassable, but there\nwere mysterious dangers to be encountered. Men who had gone with me\nanywhere else I had asked them, had affairs of their own to attend\nto when I spoke of climbing Apo, or else flatly refused to go.\n\nI was told that no man that started up the mountain had ever come\nback. Enormous pythons drew their green bodies over its sides. Man-apes\nlived in its upper forests whose strength no human being could\nmeet. Devils and goblins lurked in the crevasses below the summit,\nand above all and most terrible of all, there was a spirit of the\nmountain whose face to see was death.\n\nMy questions as to how they knew all these things if no man had lived\nto come back from the mountain had no effect. This was not a case\nfor logic; it was one of those where instinct ruled.\n\nThere is a queer little animal, something like a sable, which is\npeculiar to Mindanao. The natives call it \"gato del monte,\" which\nmeans \"mountain cat.\" I wanted to get some specimens of this animal\nand also of a variety of pigeon which they call \"the stabbed dove,\"\nbecause it has a tuft of bright red feathers like a splash of blood\nupon its otherwise snow-white breast.\n\nTo get these I settled myself in a native village a few miles inland\nfrom the town of Dinagao, on the west shore of the Gulf of Davao. Mount\nApo towered just above this place, and I meant to climb its sides\nbefore I left the valley.\n\nAfter the Bagabos in whose village I was living found that all their\ntales of the terrible dangers on Apo did not dissuade me from tempting\nthem, three of the men agreed to pilot me as far up the mountain\nside as they ever went, and to carry there for me a sufficient supply\nof food to last me, as they evidently believed, as long as I should\nneed food. One of them, the best guide and carrier I had found on the\nwhole island, had screwed his courage up to where he had promised\nto go farther with me; but the morning of our start a \"quago\" bird\nflew across our path and hooted; and that settled the matter. Such\nan ominous portent as that no intelligent Bagabo could be expected\nto disregard. The men hardly could be got to carry my luggage as\nfar as they had agreed, and as soon as they had put the things down,\nthey bade me a hasty farewell and scuttled down the mountain as fast\nas their legs could carry them.\n\nI slept that night where the men had left me, and set out early the\nnext morning, hoping to get to the top of the mountain and back to\nthe same place before night overtook me. The climb was more than hard\nfor the first mile--harder than I had even feared. The forest grew\nso dense as to be practically impassable, and I finally took to the\nbed of a rocky stream, up which the travelling, although dangerous,\nwas not so hard.\n\nIn time, though, by scrambling up this water course, I passed\nbeyond the tree line, and then, where there was only shrubbery,\nit was fairly easy to get along. I could see above the vegetation,\nnow, and the view even from here would have repaid me for all my\neffort. The side of the mountain swept down in a majestic curve from\nmy feet to the sea. At its base was Dinagao, and farther up the coast,\nDavao. Beyond them lay the blue waters of the Gulf of Davao, and far\nacross this, showing only as a line of deeper blue upon the water,\nthe mountain ranges of the eastern peninsula.\n\nThe bushes through which I waded were bent down with the ripe berries\nwhich grew on them. A herd of small, dark brown deer feeding among\nthe bushes hardly moved out of my way. I wondered at their tameness,\nbut thought it must be because no man had ever come within their\nsight before.\n\nAbove the bushes there was a zone of rock, broken in places into huge\nboulders, and then between this and the cone was the sulphur field,\nglowing, now that I was near enough to see it, with a richness of\ncolouring such as no painter's palette could reproduce. From darkest\ngreen to deepest blue, through all the tints and shades of yellow,\nthe colour scheme went, with here and there a touch of rose.\n\nI had stopped a moment to get breath and to gaze at the wonderful\nscene before me when there came into it and stood still between two\ngreat rocks, as a living picture might have stepped up into its frame,\na woman, the strangest to look at that I have ever seen.\n\nShe was young and slender. She was dressed in a simple, dark-brown,\nhemp-cloth garment which fell from neck to feet, and her round young\narms were bare to the shoulder.\n\nIt took me a full minute, before I could realize what it was which\nmade her look so strange to me.\n\nThen I knew. It had been so long since I had seen a white woman that\nI did not know one when I saw her.\n\nThis woman's face and arms were as white as mine--much whiter, indeed,\nfor I was tanned by months of Asiatic sun--and the hair which fell\nabout her shoulders and down below her waist, was white;--not light,\nor golden, but white.\n\nFor once in my life, I am willing to confess, my nerves went back on\nme; and I could think of nothing but what the natives in the village\nat the foot of the mountain had told me. Pythons and man-apes and\ndevils I had seen no trace of, but here, beyond question, was the\n\"Spirit of the Mountain.\"\n\nA stout, pointed staff of iron-wood, which I had been carrying to\nhelp me in my scramble up the mountain, slipped from my hand and fell\nclattering to the rocks. The woman turned her head toward the spot from\nwhich the sound had come, as if she heard the noise of the stick upon\nthe stones, but although we were only a little way from each other,\nthere was no expression in her face to indicate that she saw me.\n\nThen she spoke.\n\n\"Madre!\"\n\nThere was no answer, and she called again, clearer and louder.\n\n\"Ma-dre!\"\n\nThere was a sound of swift steps on the stones, and a moment later\nanother woman--an older woman--came from behind one of the rocks.\n\nAs if in answer to some question in the girl's face, the woman looked\ndown and saw me.\n\nIn an instant she had sprung before the younger woman, as if to hide\nher from me.\n\nThere are some women in the world whose very manner carries with\nit an impression of power. Such was the woman whom I saw before me\nnow. Not young; dark of skin, clad only in the simplest possible\nhemp-cloth garment, there was in her face a dignity which could not\nbut win instant recognition.\n\n\"Who are you?\" she asked in Spanish. \"And why do you come here?\"\n\nI told her as simply and as plainly as I could, who I was, and why\nI had come up the mountain. She kept her place in front of the girl,\nscreening her from sight during all the time that we were talking.\n\nWhen I had finished she stood silent for a moment, as if thinking\nwhat to do.\n\n\"Since you have come here,\" she said at last, \"where I had thought no\none would ever come, and have learned what I had hoped no one would\never know, you will not, I feel sure, deny me an opportunity to tell\nyou enough of the reason why two women live in this wild place, so\nthat I hope you will help them to keep their secret. May I ask you\nto go with us to the place which we call home?\"\n\nI said I would be glad to go, without having the slightest idea\nwhere we were going. I should have said it just the same, I think,\nif I had known she was going to lead me straight down into the crater\nof the volcano.\n\n\"Elena,\" the older woman said, speaking to the girl. Then she said\nsomething else, in a native dialect which I did not understand.\n\nThe girl came out from the place where she had been hidden, and\npassed behind the rocks. When I saw her face, now, I saw what I had\nnot perceived before. She was blind.\n\nWhen the girl had been gone a little time the woman said: \"Will you\nfollow me?\"\n\nShe waited until I had climbed up to where she stood, and then led\nthe way around the rock behind which the girl had disappeared. A well\ndefined path led from that place down into the dwarfed vegetation,\nand then, through that to the forest beyond. The girl was already some\ndistance down this path, walking rather slowly, as blind people walk,\nbut steadily, and with fingers outstretched here and there to touch\nthe bushes on each side.\n\nWe followed. Where the trees began to be tall enough to furnish\nshelter, my guide stopped, pushed aside the branches of what\nappeared to be an impenetrable thicket, and motioned me to follow\nher through. The girl had disappeared again. The opening through\nwhich we went was so thoroughly hidden that I might have gone past\nit fifty times and never suspected it was there, or thought that the\npath down which we had come was anything but a deer track.\n\nAnother short path led us to a cleared space in the forest in which a\nlong, low house of bamboo and thatch had been built. A herd of deer\nwas feeding near the house. Those directly in our path moved lazily\nout of the way. The others did not stir. I knew then why the deer\nthat I had seen as I had come up the mountain were so tame.\n\nA broad porch was built against one side of the house, and under\nthis were hung fibre hammocks. The woman pointed me to one of these\nhammocks, and leaving me there went into the house. When she came\nback she brought two gourds filled with some kind of home-made wine,\nand two wooden cups. The girl, coming just behind her, brought a\nbasket of fruit which the woman took from her and placed upon a bamboo\nstand beside my hammock. Then, filling one of the cups from a gourd,\nshe drank half its contents and set the cup down, fixing her eyes on\nmine as she did so.\n\nI knew enough of native customs by this time to understand what\nthis meant. If I took the cup which she had drunk from, and drank,\nI was a guest of the house, and bound in honor to do it no harm. If\nI poured wine from the other gourd into another cup and drank, I was\nunder obligations as a guest only while I was under the roof.\n\nI took the cup from the table and drank the half portion of wine\nwhich she had left in it.\n\n\"Thank you,\" the woman said. \"I will trust you.\"\n\nThen, sitting on a bamboo stool near my hammock, she began to\ntalk. Only, at times, as she told me her story, she would rise and\nwalk up and down the porch, as if she could tell some things easier\nwalking than when sitting still.\n\nMuch of what she told me I shall not write down here; but enough for\nan understanding of the strange things which followed.\n\n\"My home was once in ----,\" she said, naming one of the most important\ntowns in the island. \"My father was a Spanish officer, rich, proud\nand powerful. My mother was a Visayan woman. When I was little more\nthan a girl, my parents married me to a Spanish officer much older\nthan myself. So far as I knew then what love was, I thought I loved\nhim. Afterward, I came to know.\n\n\"Among the prisoners brought into my husband's care there came one\nday a Moro, whose life, for some reason, had been spared longer than\nwas the lot of most prisoners. I told myself, the first time I saw\nthis man, that he was the noblest looking man I had ever seen, and\nsince that time I have never seen his equal. Chance made it possible\nfor us to meet and speak, and then, in a little while, I came to know\nwhat love really is.\n\n\"One day I learned that the Moro prisoner was to be beheaded the\nnext day. Word had come that a Spanish prisoner whom the Moros had\ncaptured some time before, and with the hope of whose ransom this\nman had been held, had been killed.\n\n\"That night\"--the woman was walking the floor of the porch now--\"I\nkilled my husband while he was asleep, set the man I loved free, and\nwe fled the city. By day we hid in the forests, and walked by night,\nuntil we came to a part of the island where the Moros lived. Nicomedis\nbrought me to the town which had been his home, and we were married\nand lived there.\n\n\"Elena is our child. You have seen her.\"\n\nI realized cow the truth about the girl;--her strange appearance,\nthe color of her skin and eyes and hair. In my travels through the\nislands I had once or twice seen other albino children.\n\nThe woman had sat down again.\n\n\"Our life in the Moro town was never wholly comfortable. My husband's\npeople distrusted me. I was of a different faith, and from a hostile\nrace. They would rather he would have chosen a wife of his own\npeople. When the child was born things grew worse. Some said the tribe\nwould never win in war while the child lived;--it was a curse. Then\ncame a year when the plague raged among the Moros as it had never been\nknown to do, terrible as some of its visits before that time had been.\n\n\"One day a slave, whose life Nicomedis once had saved when his\nmaster would have beaten the man to death, came to our house and\ntold us that the people of the town were coming to kill us all,\nthat the curse might be removed and the plague stayed. My husband\nwould have stood up to fight them all until he himself was killed,\nbut for the sake of the child, and because I begged him not to leave\nus alone, he did not. Again we fled into the forest; and because the\ntrees and the beasts and the birds were kinder to us than any men,\nwe said we would come up here--where we knew no man dare come--and\nwould live our lives here.\n\n\"Eight years ago my husband died.\" The woman was walking the porch\nagain, and sometimes she waited a long time between the sentences of\nher story. \"We buried him out there,\" pointing to where the forest came\nup to one side of the enclosure. \"It is easy for us to live here. We\nhave everything we need. We have never been disturbed before. Only\nonce, years ago, did any of the natives come as far up the mountain\nas this, and it was easy for us to frighten them so that no one has\ndared to come since then. You are the only living person who knows\nour secret. Shall we know that it is to be safe with you?\"\n\nFor answer I filled the wooden cup from the gourd again, drank half\nthe contents, and handed the cup to her to drink the rest.\n\n\"I thank you,\" she said. \"My life has had enough of sin and suffering\nin it so that I have hoped it may not have more of either.\n\n\"I would not have you think that I am complaining,\" she said hastily,\na moment later, as if she was afraid I would get that impression. \"I\nam not. I do not regret one day of my life. My hands are stained with\nwhat people call crime, and my heart knows all the weight which grief\ncan lay upon a heart; but the joy of my life while my husband lived\npaid for it all. To have been loved by him as I was loved, was well\nworth crime and grief.\"\n\n\"Why do you not go away from here?\" I asked. \"Why not leave this\ncountry entirely, and go to some new land where you would be free\nfrom danger? I will help you to get away.\"\n\n\"We know nothing of other lands,\" she said. \"We should be helpless\nthere. We are better here.\" \"Besides,\" a moment later, \"his grave,\"\npointing out toward the trees, \"is here.\"\n\nIt had grown dark as we talked; the thick, dead darkness of a\nPhilippine forest night. The deer on the ground outside the porch\nhad lain down and curled their heads around beside them and gone\nto sleep. Enormous bats flew past the house. We could not see them,\nbut we felt the air which their huge wings set in motion. The woman\nlighted a little torch of \"viao\" nuts. Elena came out of the house,\nwalked across the porch and disappeared in the darkness, going toward\nthe forest.\n\n\"Ought she to go?\" I asked. \"Will she not be lost, or hurt?\"\n\n\"Did you not understand it all?\" the girl's mother said. \"She is\nblind only in the day time. At night she sees as readily as you and\nI do by day.\"\n\nIn a few minutes the girl came back with her hands filled with fresh\npicked fruit. She gave me this, and her mother brought out from the\nhouse such simple food as she could provide.\n\n\"You will sleep here, tonight,\" she said, and left me.\n\nThe next day I went to the top of the mountain, and after that, by\nmaking two trips to my camp, brought up all the articles which had\nbeen left there, including some blankets a gun and ammunition, some\nfood and some medicines. These I asked \"the woman of the mountain,\"\nas I called her to myself, to let me give to her. She took them, and\nthanked me. I stayed there that night, and the next day said good by\nto the two strange women, and went down the mountain.\n\nWhen I reached my house in the village I found my neighbors getting\nready to divide my property among themselves, since they were satisfied\nI would never return to claim it. They did not think it strange that I\ncame back empty-handed. That I had come back at all was a wonder. For\nthe sake of the security of the two women I let it be known that I had\nseen strange sights on the volcano's top, and that it was a perilous\njourney to climb its sides.\n\nI planned to stay in the village some weeks longer. My house, like\nmost of the native habitations, was built of bamboo, and was set upon\nposts several feet above the ground. I lived alone. One night about\na month after my return, I woke from a sound sleep, choking.\n\nSome one's hand was pressed tightly over my mouth, and another hand\non my breast held me down motionless upon my sleeping mat.\n\n\"Don't speak!\" some one whispered into\nmy ear. \"Don't make a sound! Lie perfectly\nquiet until you understand all that I am\nsaying!\n\n\"The natives have banded themselves together to kill you tonight. They\nbelieve the village has been cursed ever since you came down from\nMount Apo, and that you are the cause of it.\"\n\nI could see now that there had been a growing coldness toward me on\nthe part of the people ever since I had come back. And there had\nbeen evil luck, too. The chief's best horse had cast himself and\nhad to be killed. Two men out hunting had fallen into the hands of\na hostile tribe and been \"boloed.\" Game had been unusually scarce,\nand a \"quago\" bird had hooted three nights in succession.\n\n\"They are coming here tonight to burn your house,\" the same voice\nwhispered, \"and kill you with their spears if you try to escape the\nflames. No matter how I knew, or how we came. There is no time to\nlose. You cannot stop to bring anything with you. Come outside the\nhouse at once, as noiselessly as possible, and Elena will lead us to\nwhere you can escape.\"\n\nThe hands were taken from my mouth and body, and I felt that I\nwas alone.\n\nA few moments later, outside the house, when I stepped from the ladder\nto the ground, a hand--a woman's hand--grasped mine firmly.\n\n\"Do not be afraid to follow,\" the same voice whispered. \"Elena will\nlead the way, and will tell us of anything in the path.\"\n\nThe hand gave a tug at mine, and I followed. We were in absolute\ndarkness. Sometimes the frond of a giant fern brushed against my\ncheek, or the sharp-pointed leaf of a palm stung my face, but that\nwas all. The girl led us steadily onward through the forest.\n\n\"Stop!\" she said, once, \"and look back.\"\n\nI turned my face in the direction from which we had come. A ray of\nlight shone in the darkness, and quickly became a blaze. It was my\nhouse on fire. With the light of the fire came the sound of savage\ncries, the shouts of the men watching with poised spears about the\nburning house. In the dim light which the fire cast where we stood,\nI could make out the forms of my two companions. A black cloth bound\naround the girl's head hid her white hair. In the dark, her eyes,\nso blank in the day light, glowed like two stars. She held her mother\nby the hand, and the older woman's other hand grasped mine. I looked\nat the girl, and thought of Nydia, leading the fugitives from out\nPompeii to safety.\n\nBefore the light of the fire had died, we were on our way again. It\nseemed to me as if we walked in the darkness of the forest for hours;\nbut after a little we were following a beaten track. At times the\ngirl told us to step over a tree fallen across the path, or warned\nus that we were to cross a stream. At last we came out on the hard\nsand of the ocean beach, and reached the water's edge. Freed from\nthe forest's shade the darkness was less dense. I could make out the\nsurface of the water, and out on it a little way some dark object. The\ngirl spoke to her mother in their native tongue.\n\n\"There is a 'banca,'\" the woman said, pointing out over the water to\nthe boat. \"No matter whose it is. Swim out to it, pull up the anchor,\nand before day comes you can be safe.\"\n\nI tried to thank her.\n\n\"I am glad we could do it,\" she said, simply. \"I am glad if we could\ndo good.\"\n\nThen they left me; and went back up the beach into the darkness.\n\n\n\n\n\nWITH WHAT MEASURE YE METE\n\n\n\"The story of the tax collector of Siargao reminds me of an official\nof that rank whom I once knew,\" said a fellow naturalist whom I\nonce met at a club in Manila, and with whom I had been exchanging\nexperiences. \"It was when I was gathering specimens in Negros. They\nwere a bad lot, those collectors, a set of money-grabbers of the\nworst kind, but, bad as they were, they had a hard time, too.\n\n\"If they did not make their pile, out of the poor natives, and go\nback to Manila or to Spain, rich, in three or four years, it was\npretty likely to be because they had fallen victims to the hate of\nthe natives or to the distrust of the officials at headquarters.\n\n\"When I first went to Negros, and had occasion to go to the tribunal,\nas the government house was called, I noticed some objects in one of\nthe rooms so odd and so different from anything I had seen anywhere\nelse that I asked their use. I was told that they were used for\ncatching men who had not paid their taxes.\n\n\"Among the various thorn-bearing plants which the swamps of the\nPhilippine Islands produce is one called the 'bejuco,' or 'jungle\nrope.' This is a vine of no great size, but of tremendous strength,\nwhich, near the end, divides into several slender but very tough\nbranches. Each of these branches is surrounded by many rings of long,\nwicked, recurved thorns, as sharp and strong as steel fish-hooks, and\nnearly as difficult to dislodge. The hunter who encounters a thicket\nof 'bejuco' goes around it, or turns back, for it is hopeless to try\nto go through. While he frees himself from the grasp of one thorn,\na dozen more have caught him somewhere else.\n\n\"The objects which I had seen in the tribunal guard room were made\nof long bamboo poles, across one end of which two short pieces had\nbeen fastened. To these cross pieces were bound a great number of the\n'bejuco' vines, so arranged that the innumerable hooks which they\nbore could be easily swung about in the air.\n\n\"The 'Gobernadorcillo' who was in office at the time was a man who\nhad no mercy on his people. Negros, with the other islands of the\ngroup commonly known as Visayan, forms a province which is under the\nsupervision of a governor who has his headquarters in the island of\nCebu, where also the bishop who is the head of the see resides.\n\n\"Negros is near enough to Cebu so that the authority of the government\ncould be maintained better there than it could in the more distant\nislands. When I was there the village of Dumaguete, the chief town\nand seaport of Negros, contained a stone fort, the most imposing\nprobably of any outside the capital; while the garrison formed of\nhalf-breed soldiers who were on duty there, sent down from Cebu with\nthe 'Gobernadorcillo,' kept the people in a degree of subjection\nwhich in many places would have been impossible.\n\n\"The men whom the Governor employed to round up his delinquent subjects\nwere called 'cuadrilleros.' Sunday was the day he devoted to the sport,\nfor such I think he really regarded it. The 'cuadrilleros' would start\nout in the morning with a list of the men who were wanted. A house\nwould be surrounded, and unless the man had been given some warning\nof their coming, and had fled, he would be driven out. Then, if he\ntried to escape, or refused to come with them, one of the 'bejuco'\n'man-catchers' was swung with a practiced hand in his direction,\nand, caught in a hundred places by its cruel, thorny hooks, he was\nled to town, the journey in itself being a torture such as few men\nwould think they could endure. The whipping came later.\n\n\"It was not until Pedro fell into trouble that I came to know really\nthe worst of all this. Of course I knew in a way, I had seen the\n'bejuco' poles, and the rattans, and the whipping bench, and sometimes,\nof a Sunday, when I was in the village and could not go away, I had\nheard cries from the tribunal such as white men do not often hear--such\nas I hope no one will ever hear again, even from those places.\n\n\"Pedro was my Visayan servant, a good worker and a likable fellow in\nevery way. He came to me one Sunday morning in great distress. His\ntwin brother had been dragged into the tribunal that morning by the\n'cuadrilleros,' and was at that very moment being flogged. Could I\nnot help him? Would I not go to the Governor and tell him that Pedro\nwould pay his brother's tribute as soon as he could earn the money?\n\n\"If course I would. I would gladly do more than that I would pay the\nmoney myself and let Pedro earn it afterwards. The man's last wages,\nI knew, had gone to pay his old father's taxes and his own. His family\nlived some little distance inland.\n\n\"We lost no time in getting to the tribunal. Pedro told me on the\nway, and I think he told me the truth, that his brother's tax was\nnot rightly due then, else he would have been ready with the money.\n\n\"I have always been glad I had Pedro wait outside the door of the\ngovernment house.\n\n\"His brother was bound upon the whipping bench, his body bare to the\nwaist. A row of stripes which ran diagonally across his bare back from\nhip to shoulder showed where each blow of the rattan had cut through\nskin and flesh so that the blood flowed back to mark its course.\n\n\"'Stop!' I cried, rushing forward to where the Governor was\nstanding. 'Stop! I will pay this man's tax. How much is it? Let him\nup! I'll pay for him.'\n\n\"The Governor looked at me a moment, and, excited as I was, I noticed\nthat his face was set in an angry scowl.\n\n\"'You can't pay for him, now,' he said. 'No one can pay for him now.'\n\n\"'I'll teach them,' he added, a moment later, 'See that!' holding up\nhis left arm, about the wrist of which I saw a handkerchief was bound,\nfresh stained with blood.\n\n\"'Go on!' he cried, to the man with the rod.\n\n\"At first I could not find out what had happened. Then a soldier\ntold me.\n\n\"The man had been brought in like a snared animal, held by the jungle\nropes, each thorn of which was agony. When he had cried out that he\nwas unjustly tortured, the Governor himself had dragged the clinging\nhooks from out his flesh, and had called him a name which to the\nVisayan means deathly insult if it be not resented.\n\n\"At which Pedro's brother, snatching a knife which was hidden inside\nhis clothing, struck at the Governor and wounded him in the arm,\nbefore he could be caught by the soldiers, disarmed, and bound down\non the bench.\n\n\"And all the time I had been learning this, the blows of the flog-man\nhad been falling, laid on with an artistic cruelty across the other\nwelts.\n\n\"I could not bear it. At the risk of destroying my chances to be\nallowed to finish my work in the island, perhaps even at the risk of\nputting my own life in danger, I tried once more.\n\n\"'Unless you stop,' I cried, 'I will report you to your government.'\n\n\"The 'Gobernadorcillo' looked at me a moment, and almost smiled--a\nsmile which showed his teeth at the sides of his mouth.\n\n\"'Please yourself.' he said. 'But unless you like what I am doing I\nwould suggest that you step out.'\n\n\"The man died that night, in the prison beneath the tribunal.\n\n\"I kept my word, and wrote a full account of the whole affair to the\nGovernor-general at Manila. It was weeks before I received a curt\nnote in reply, saying that the general government made it a rule not\nto interfere with the local jurisdiction of its subordinates.\n\n\"Pedro never spoke to me of his brother's death but once. There was\nin his nature much of the same grim courage which had enabled his\nbrother to bear the awful pain of that day upon the whipping bench\nwithout a cry.\n\n\"'Senor,' Pedro said one day, quite suddenly, 'I would not have\nyou think me a coward, that I do not avenge my brother's death. I\nwould have killed the Governor at once, or now, or any day, openly,\nglad to have him know how and why, and glad to die for the deed,\nonly that now there is no one but me left to care for my old father,\nIt is not that I am a coward, but that I wait.'\n\n\"I expect that I should have felt myself in duty bound to expostulate\nwith him, upon harbouring such a state of mind as that, regardless\nof what my own private opinion in the matter may have been, had it\nnot been that before I could decide just what I wanted to say, a man\nhad come to my house to tell me that the mail steamer from Manila,\nwhich came to the island only once in two months was come in sight.\n\n\"The coming of that particular steamer was of special interest to me,\nas it was to bring me a stock of supplies; and Pedro and I went down\nto the dock at once.\n\n\"I remember that invoice in particular, because it brought me a\nsupply of chloroform, a drug, which I had been out of, and for which\nI was anxiously waiting. Two months before, a native from far back\nin the forest had brought me a fine live ape. I could not keep him\nalive,--that is not after I left the island,--and I wanted his skin\nand skeleton for the museum, but I hated to mar the beauty of the\nspecimen by a wound. That night with Pedro's help I put him quietly\nout of the way, with the help of the chloroform.\n\n\"Afterwards the thought came back to me that as we took away the\ncone and cotton, when I was sure the animal was dead, Pedro said,\n'Senor, how like a man he looks.'\n\n\"Several weeks later the residents of Dumaguete were thrown into\nintense if subdued excitement by the news that the Gobernadorcillo\nwas dead. Apparently well as usual the night before, he had been\nfound dead in hie bed in the morning, in the room in the 'gobierno'\nin which he slept. If he had been killed on the street, or found\nstabbed, or shot, in his room, the commotion would not have been so\ngreat. Such things as that had happened in Negros more than once,\nto other officials. But this man was simply dead.\n\n\"The 'teniente primero,' who, as next in authority, took charge of\naffairs upon the death of his superior, sent a man during the day\nto ask me if I would come to the tribunal. He was a very decent man,\nor would have been, I think, under a different executive. Naturally\nhe was anxious, under the circumstances, as to his own standing with\nthe authorities at Cebu, and he asked for my evidence, if necessary,\nas that of one of the few foreigners in the place.\n\n\"In company with him I visited the late governor's room in the\n'gobierno.' It was a large room, like all of those in the palace,\nas the executive mansion was sometimes called, built upon the ground\nfloor, and having several lattice windows. A soldier was on duty in\nthe room. As we were coming out, this man came to us, and saluting the\n'teniente,' handed him a small tin can, saying, 'A servant cleaning\nthe room, found this.'\n\n\"The 'teniente' looked at the can curiously, and then, handing it to\nme, asked me if I knew what it was.\n\n\"'It is a can in which a kind of strong liquor sometimes comes,'\nI said. Then I unscrewed the top. The can was empty, but I showed\nhim that there was still a strong and pungent odor which lingered in\nit. The explanation satisfied him. The late governor had been known\nto be a man who had more than a passing liking for strong liquors.\n\n\"I did not feel called upon to explain that the can was a chloroform\ncan, and that no one in the place but myself had any like it.\n\n\"When I went home, though, and counted my stock, I found, as I had\nexpected, that it was one can short; and that the cone and cotton which\nI had used for giving the drug had been replaced by one freshly made.\n\n\"I did not think it necessary, either, to impart the result of my\ninvestigations to the authorities, or to suggest to them any suspicions\nwhich might have been roused in my own mind.\n\n\"Even if there had not been very decided personal reasons why I would\nbetter not, unless I was obliged to, I had in mind that letter of\na few months before, when these same authorities had informed me of\ntheir policy of non-interference in local affairs.\n\n\"Moreover, I could not but remember what I had seen that day, when\nthe man now dead had said to me, 'I'll teach them.' If his teachings\nhad been effectual, had I any reason to criticise?\"\n\n\n\n\n\nTOLD AT THE CLUB\n\n\n\"Speaking of 'anting-anting,'\" said a man at the club House on the\nbank of the Pasig river, in Manila, one evening, \"I have had an\nexperience in that line myself which was rather striking.\"\n\nAn American officer at the club that evening had just been telling\nus about a native prisoner captured by his command sometime before\nin one of the smaller islands, who, when searched, had been found to\nbe wearing next his skin a sort of undershirt on which was roughly\npainted a crude map of certain of the islands of the archipelago.\n\nThis shirt, it seemed, the officer went on to explain, the man regarded\nas a powerful \"anting-anting,\" which would be able to protect him\nfrom injury in any of the islands represented on it. That he had been\ntaken alive, instead of having been killed in the fight in which he\nwas captured, the man firmly believed to be due to the fact that he\nwas wearing the shirt at the time. A native servant in the employ of\none of the officers of the company had explained later that such an\n\"anting-anting\" as this was highly prized, and that it increased in\nvalue with its age. Only certain \"wise men\" had the right to add a\nnew island to the number of those painted on the garment, and before\nthis could be done the wearer of the shirt must have performed some\ngreat deed of valour in that particular island. The magic garment was\nworn only in time of war, or when danger was known to threaten, and\nwas bequeathed from father to son, or, sometimes, changed ownership\nin a less peaceful way.\n\n\"What was the experience which you have referred to?\" I finally asked\nthe man who had spoken, when he did not seem inclined to go on of\nhis own accord.\n\nThe man hesitated a moment before he replied to my question, and\nsomething in his manner then, or perhaps when he did speak, made me\nfeel as if he was sorry that he had spoken at all.\n\n\"It is a story I do not like to tell,\" he said, and then added hastily\na little later, as if in explanation, \"I mean I do not like to tell\nit because I cannot help feeling, when I do tell it, that people do\nnot believe me to be telling the truth.\n\n\"Some years ago,\" he continued, \"I went down to the island of Mindoro\nto hunt 'timarau,' one of the few large wild animals of the islands--a\nqueer beast, half way between a wild hog and a buffalo.\n\n\"I hired as a guide and tracker, a wiry old Mangyan native who seemed\nto have an instinct for finding a 'timarau' trail and following it\nwhere my less skillful eyes could see nothing but undisturbed forest,\nand who also seemed to have absolutely no fear, a thing which was even\nmore remarkable than his skill, since the natives as a general thing\nare notably timid about getting in the way of an angry 'timarau.' As\na matter of fact I did not blame them so very much for this, after I\nhad had one experience myself in trying to dodge the wild charge of one\nof these animals infuriated by a bullet which I had sent into his body.\n\n\"Perico, though,--that was the old man's name,--never seemed to have\nthe least fear.\n\n\"I was surprised, then, one morning when the weather and forest\nwere both in prime condition for a Hunt, to have my guide flatly\nrefuse to leave our camp. Nothing which I could say or do had the\nleast influence upon him. I reasoned, and threatened, and coaxed,\nand swore, but all to no effect.\n\n\"When I asked him why he would not go,--what was the matter,--was he\nill? he did not seem to be inclined to answer at first, except to say\nthat he was not ill; but finally, later in the day, he explained to\nme that he had had a 'warning' that it would not be safe for him to\ngo hunting that day; that his life would be in danger if he did go.\n\n\"Perico had been about the islands much more than most of the men\nof his tribe. He had even been to Manila once or twice, and so not\nonly knew much more about the world than most Mangyans did, but\nhad also picked up enough of the Spanish language so that he could\nspeak it fairly well. In this way he was able to tell me, finally,\nhow the 'warning' had come to him, and why he put so much confidence\nin it. He also told me this was why he had been so brave about the\nhunting before. He knew that he was not in any danger so long as he\nwas not forewarned. When he had been warned he avoided the danger by\nstaying quietly in camp, or in some place of safety.\n\n\"Even after he had told me as much as this, Perico would not explain\nto me just how the 'warning' had come, until, at last, he said that\n'the stone' had told him.\n\n\"This stone, he said, was a wonderful 'anting-anting' which had\nbeen in his family for many years. His father had given it to him,\nand his grandfather had given it to his father.\n\n\"Once, many, many years before, there had been an ancestor of his\nwho had been famous through all the tribe for his goodness and\nwisdom. This man, when very old, had one day taken shelter under\na tree from a furious storm. While he was there fire from the sky\nhad come down upon the tree, and when the storm was over the man was\nfound dead. Grasped tightly in one of the dead man's hands was found\na small flat stone, smooth cut and polished, which no one of his\nfamily had ever seen him have before. Naturally the stone was looked\nupon as a precious 'anting-anting,' sent down from the sky, and was\nreligiously watched until its mysterious properties were understood,\nand it was learned that it had the power to forewarn its owner against\nimpending evil. When danger threatened its owner, Perico said, the\nstone glowed at night with a strange light which he believed was due\nto its celestial origin. At all other times it was a plain dull stone.\n\n\"The night before, for the first time in months, the stone had flashed\nforth its strange light; and as a result its owner would do nothing\nwhich would place him in any danger which he could avoid.\n\n\"I thought of all the strange stories I had read and heard of meteors\nfalling from the sky, and of phosphoric rocks, and of little known\nchemical elements which were mysteriously sensitive to certain\natmospheric conditions, and wondered if Perico's stone could be any\nof these. All my requests to be allowed to see the wonderful stone,\nhowever, proved fruitless, Perico was obdurate. There was a tradition\nthat it must not be looked at by daylight, he said, and that the eyes\nof no one but its owner should gaze upon it.\n\n\"And so, for eight beautiful days of magnificent hunting weather,\nthat aggravating heathen stone kept us idle there in the midst of the\nMindoro forest. I could not go alone, and Perico simply would not go\nso long as the stone glowed at night, as, he informed me each morning,\nit had done. It was in vain that I fretted, and offered him twice,\nand four times, and, finally--with a desire to see how much in earnest\nthe man really was--ten times his regular wages if he would go with me\nfor just one hunt. He simply would not stir out of the camp, until,\non the morning of the ninth day, he met me with a cheerful face,\nand said, 'Senor, we will hunt today. The stone is black once more.'\n\n\"And hunt we did,--that day, and many more--for the stone remained\naccommodatingly dark after that--and we had good luck, too.\n\n\"When I came back to Manila I brought Perico with me. He had begun\nto have serious trouble with one of his eyes, which threatened to\nrender him unable to follow the work of hunting of which he was so\nfond. I tried to make him believe that this was the danger of which\nhe claimed he had been warned by the stone, but he would not agree to\nthis, saying that his 'anting-anting' always foretold only a violent\ndeath, or some serious bodily injury. In Manila I had him see that Jose\nRizal who afterwards became so prominent in the political troubles of\nthe islands, and who had such a tragic later history. Senor Rizal,\nwho had studied in Europe, was a skillful oculist, and an operation\nwhich he performed on Perico's eye was entirely successful. I kept\nthe old man with me until he was fully recovered, and then sent him\nback to his native island. Before he went, he thanked me over and\nover again for what I had done, and kept telling me that some time\nhe would pay me for it all.\n\n\"I laughed at him, at first, not thinking what he meant, until, just\nbefore he was to go to the boat, he clasped my hand in both his,\nand said, 'Senor, I have no children to leave the \"anting anting\"\nof my family to. When I die, it shall be yours.'\n\n\"I would have laughed again, then, had it not been that the poor old\nfellow was so much in earnest that it would have been cruel. As it\nwas, I thanked him, and told him I hoped he would live many years to\nbe the guardian of the stone, and to be guarded by it himself.\n\n\"After Perico had gone, I forgot all about him. Imagine my surprise,\nthen, when a little more than a year afterward, I received a small\npacket from a man whom I knew in Calupan, the seaport of Mindoro,\nand a letter, telling me that my old guide was dead, and that during\nthe illness which had preceded his death he had arranged to have the\npacket which came with the letter sent to me.\n\n\"The package and letter reached me one morning. Of course I knew what\nPerico had sent me, and, foolish as it may seem, a bit of tenderness\nfor the old man's genuine faith in his talisman made me, mindful of\nhis admonition that the stone must not be exposed to the light of day,\nrestrain my curiosity to open the package until I was in my rooms\nthat night. What I found, when at last I held the mysterious charm\nin my hands, was a smooth, dark, flint-like disc, about an inch and\na half in diameter, and perhaps half an inch in thickness.\n\n\"Whatever the stone might have done for its former owners, or might\ndo for me at some other time, it certainly had no errand to perform\nthat night. It was just a plain, dark stone, and no matter how long\nI looked at it, or in what position, it did not change its appearance.\n\n\"Finally, half provoked with myself at my thoughts, I put the stone\ninto a little cabinet in which were other curious souvenirs of my\ntravels in the islands, and forgot it.\n\n\"Two years after that it became necessary for me to go to Europe. I\nhad taken passage on one of the regular steamers from Manila to Hong\nKong, and was to reship from there. As I expected to return in a few\nmonths, I did not give up my lodgings, but before I started I packed\naway much of my stuff for safe keeping. As I was busy at the office\nduring the day, I did the most of this packing in the evenings. In\nthe course of this work I came to the little cabinet of which I have\nspoken, and threw it open in order to stuff it with cotton, so that\nthe contents would not rattle about when moved.\"\n\nThe man who was telling the story stopped at this point so long that\nwe who sat there in the smoking room of the Club listening to him\nwere afraid he was not going to continue. At last he said:--\n\n\"This is the part of the story which I do not like to tell.\n\n\"On the black velvet lining of the cabinet, surrounded by the jumble\nof curios among which it had been tossed, lay old Perico's stone,--not\nthe plain, dark stone which I had put there, but a faintly glowing\ncircle of lustrous light.\n\n\"I shut the lid of the cabinet down, locked the box, and put the key in\nmy pocket. But I did no more packing that night. I came down here to\nthe Club, and stayed as long as I could get anybody to stay with me,\nand talked of everything under the sun except the one thing which I\nwas all the time thinking about.\n\n\"The next day I told myself I was a fool, and crazy into the bargain,\nand that my eyes had deceived me. And then, in spite of all this,\nwhen I went home at night I could hardly wait for dusk to come that\nI might open the cabinet.\n\n\"The stone lay on the velvet, just as the night before, as if it were\na thing on fire!\n\n\"I said to myself that I would have some common sense, and would\nexercise my will power; and went on with my packing with furious\nenergy. But I did not put the cabinet where I could not get at it.\n\n\"The boat for Hong Kong on which I had taken passage was to sail the\nnext night. I finished my work, said good bye to my acquaintances,\nand went on board. Fifteen minutes before the steamer sailed I had my\nluggage tumbled from her deck back on to the wharf, and came ashore,\nswearing at myself for a fool, and knowing that I would be well\nlaughed at and quizzed for my fickleness by every one who knew me.\"\n\nThe man stopped again. After a little, one of the men who had been\nlistening to him said, in a voice which sounded strangely softened:--\n\n\"I remember. That was the ----,\" calling the name of a steamer\nwhich brought to us all the recollection of one of the most awful\nsea tragedies of those terrible tropic waters, where sometimes sea\nand wind seem to be in league to buffet and destroy.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the man who had told the story. \"No person who sailed on\nboard of her that night was ever seen again; and only bits of wreckage\non one of the northern reefs gave any hint of her fate.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nPEARLS OF SULU\n\n\nNow and then people comment upon the odd style of a charm which I\nwear upon my watch chain. The charm is a plain, gold sphere, and is,\nI acknowledge, a trifle too large to be in good taste.\n\nIf those who ask me about the charm are people whom I care to trust,\nI sometimes open the globe--it has a secret spring--and show them\nhidden away inside, a single pearl, so large and perfect that no one\nwho has ever seen it has failed to marvel at its beauty. If they ask\nme why I wear so regal a gem, and where I got it, I tell them that I\nam not quite sure that the jewel is mine, and that if I ever find the\nperson who seems to have a better right to it than I, I shall give it\nup. Meanwhile I like to wear the locket where I can sometimes look at\nthe pearl, since it is a reminder of what I think was the strangest\nadventure I ever had in the Philippine Islands. And I had many queer\nexperiences there during the years I have journeyed up and down the\narchipelago in one capacity and another.\n\nOne summer when I was collecting specimens for a great European museum,\nI was living on the southeastern shore of the island of Palawan. Or\nrather I was living above, or beside the shore of the island; I don't\nknow which word would best describe the location of my house, which,\nhowever, one could hardly say was on the island.\n\nThe Moros who live on that side of the island which is washed by the\nSulu Sea, and who ostensibly depend upon pearl fishing for a living,\nand really lived by their high-handed deeds of piracy against their\nneighbors and mankind in general, inhabit odd houses which are built\non stout posts driven into the sand at the edge of the sea. The\nwalls of the houses are woven of bamboo, and the roofs are thatched,\nlike those of nearly all the native habitations, but the location is\nunique. When the tide is high, the surface of the water--fortunately\nthe village is built over a sheltered bay--comes to within two feet\nbeneath the floors of the houses, and the inhabitants go ashore in\ncockle-shell boats. When the tide is low the foundation posts rise\nout of the mud and sand, and the people go inland on foot, dodging\npiles of seaweed and similar debris, left by the receding waves.\n\nIt was one of these houses that I hired, and in it set up my household\nbelongings while I was at work in that part of Palawan.\n\nThe location had many advantages, for at that time I was principally\nengaged in collecting corals, sponges, shell fish and similar\nsalt-water specimens. The natives brought me boat loads of such\nmaterial, for once in their lives, at least, working for honest\nwages. I sorted over the stuff they brought, on a platform built\nout in front of my house, and disposed of the mass of refuse in the\neasiest way imaginable, merely by shoving it off the edge of the\nplatform into the water, where the tide washed it out to sea.\n\nThen, too, this keeping house over the water brought a blessed\nrelief from the invasion of one's home by snakes, rats, ants and\nall the vermin of that kind which makes Philippine housekeeping on\nthe land a burden to the flesh, while I did not foresee at first\nthat the very water which protected me from these dangers might make\npossible the secret incursions of larger creatures. The disadvantage\nof this semi-marine style of architecture, as I looked at it, was that\nsome night a big tidal wave might come along, chasing a frolicsome\nearthquake, and bearing my house and myself along with it, leave us\nhanging high and dry in the tops of some clump of palm trees half a\ndozen miles inland.\n\nSo far as the Moros were concerned, I got along all right with\nthem. They knew, in the first place, that I had the authority of the\nSpanish government to do about what I chose in Palawan, and although\nthey cared not one ripple of the Sulu Sea for the authority of Spain\nwhen it could not be enforced by force of arms, they did respect my\narsenal of weapons and the skill with which I one day shot down a\ncrazy \"tulisane\" of their tribe who had started to run amuck, and\nby the shot saved the lives of no one knew how many of them. This,\nand my doctoring back to health two of their number who were ill,\nmade us very good friends, and I could not have asked for more willing\nhelpers, or more able, especially Poljensio.\n\nIt was not for many weeks after I had left Palawan for good, that I\ncame to understand that Poljensio may have had a double reason for\nhis willingness, which at the time I little suspected.\n\nI remember very well the first time I saw the fellow. It was the\nday of the \"macasla\" festival. Up to that time I had found no Moro\nwho would work steadily as my helper. Whatever men I hired, although\nsatisfactory while they worked, would eventually have something else\nto do, either pearl fishing, or hunting, or long trips seaward in\ntheir proas, they said for fishing, but I thought, and found later I\nhad thought rightly, for robbery. Even Poljensio used to claim time,\nnow and then, when he said the conditions of the water and weather\nwere favorable for finding pearl oysters, to go and dive for those\nlottery-ticket-like bivalves.\n\nTo tell the truth I did not blame the men so very much for turning\npirates, after I came really to understand the conditions connected\nwith the pearl fisheries.\n\nThe pearl oysters live at the bottom of such deep water, and are so\nhard to get, that I have often seen a man come up from his search for\nthem with blood running from his ears and nose, the result of staying\ndown so long. Of course such things as divers' suits, and air pumps,\nwere unknown there. The men stripped their slim, brown bodies naked,\nand went over the side of the boat with no apparatus except their\ntwo hands and a sharp knife to use against the sharks. Sometimes the\nmen never came back, and then we knew the knife had not been quick\nenough. Poljensio had a row of scars on one leg, where a shark had\nbitten him, years before, which made the leg look as if it had been\nbetween the bars of a giant's broiling iron.\n\nThen, after the forces of nature had been overcome, as if they alone\nwere not bad enough, the representatives of the government, the\n\"Gobernadorcillo,\" had to be reckoned with; and he was worse than\nall the rest.\n\nThe pearl fisheries of Palawan were the property of the Sultan\nof Sulu. At least up to that time that monarch had been able to\nmaintain an ownership in them which allowed him to claim all of the\npearls above a certain size. All that the divers got for their risk\nand labor were the small pearls and the shells. Fortunately for them\nmost of the shells had a market value for cutting into cameos, and for\ninlay work, and the Chinese dealers who came to Palawan bought them,\nas well as the pearls.\n\nIt was the business of the \"Gobernadorcillo\" to watch the divers, and\ntake from them all the pearls large enough to become the perquisite\nof the Sultan. The men were allowed to go out to the water over the\noyster beds only on certain days, and then the Sultan's representative\nwent with them, and sat in his boat to keep watch that no shells were\nopened there. After the boats had returned to the land every oyster\nshell was opened under his watchful eye, and every large pearl was\nclaimed. Of course it was only rarely that an oyster held a pearl,\nmore rarely still that the gem was a large one. When they did find a\nbig one it always made me feel sorry to see the poor fellow, who had\nworked so hard for it, have to give the prize up to go, no doubt,\nto deck some one of the four hundred wives of the ruler who lived\nacross the Sulu Sea.\n\nPoljensio was one of the best of the divers. It was at the \"macasla\"\nfestival, as I have said, that I first noticed him. For a month the\nnatives had talked about \"macasla,\" and this, with what I had heard\nabout it before, made me anxious to see the performance. So far as I\nknew I was the first American who had ever had the opportunity. It is\nonly rarely that the festival can be kept, because its success depends\nupon the possession by the natives of the berries of a certain shrub,\nwhich must be in just such a stage of ripeness to have the requisite\npower. The plant on which the berries grow is not at all common. In\nthis case it was necessary to send a long way into a distant part of\nthe island to get the berries.\n\nThe \"macasla\" festival is really a great fishing expedition, in which\nevery man, woman and child who lives near the village where it is held\ntakes part. The berries are the essential element in a great mass,\ncomposed of various ingredients mixed together; just the same as a\nbit of yeast put into a pan of bread leavens the whole lot. One very\nold man was said to be the only person near there who understood\njust how to make the mixture. A large log which had been hollowed\nout and used at one time for a canoe, was utilized as a trough to\nmake the mixture in. The mass was mixed up in the afternoon and left\nto ferment overnight. When he had it ready the old man covered the\ncanoe with banana leaves and forbade any one to go near it until the\nnext morning. I saw several different kinds of vegetable substances\ncrushed up, to be put into the canoe, besides the berries; and at\nlast a quantity of wood ashes were added.\n\nThe next morning every one was out early, as it was necessary to begin\noperations when the tide was at its very lowest point. Every one about\nthe village was on hand, each person bringing a loosely woven wicker\nbasket, into which was put a small quantity of the mixture from the\nold log canoe. When all had been provided with this they walked out\nas far as they could go, to where the tide was just turning. Then,\nwaiting until the incoming water had passed them on its way inland,\nthe natives, formed in a long line parallel with the shore, dropped\ntheir baskets into the water and shook them to and fro until all of\nthe \"macasla\" had been washed out through the loose wicker work.\n\nIn about ten minutes the effect of the mixture began to be seen. The\nsmaller fish were affected first, and began to come to the top of\nthe water, as if for air. Very soon they were followed by the larger\nones, and soon the water seemed filled with them. They would come\nto the top of the water, turn on one side, flop about a little as\nif intoxicated, and then sink helplessly to the bottom, where, the\nwater being nowhere very deep, it was easy to see them and capture\nthem. The natives secured basket after basket full, getting some so\nlarge that they could not carry them in their baskets. These they\nwould disable with a \"machete\" and then tow ashore. The fish did not\neat the \"macasla.\" It seemed simply to have impregnated the water,\nmaking a solution too powerful for them to withstand. They were not\nkilled by its effects, but acted as if they were drunk. Those which\nthe natives did not capture soon recovered and swam away as briskly as\never. Before they were able to do this though, the natives had secured\nmore than enough food to last them as long as it would remain eatable.\n\nOf course I found the miscellaneous harvest of sea animals which the\n\"macasla\" brought in most interesting, and secured a good many valuable\nspecimens. Inasmuch as I had contributed very materially to the feast\nwhich was to take place that night, and which lasted all night long,\nthe people let me wade about among the strangely helpless creatures\nand have a first pick of such as I wanted. I had noticed Poljensio\nrunning about, as one of the strongest and most agile of all the men\nin the water, and when he came near me once, when my basket was heavy,\nI offered to hire him to help me, although I had little idea that\nany one would work for wages at such a time. Quite to my surprise he\nseemed willing, and joined me in what I was doing. I learned afterwards\nthat having no family to provide for he was not so much in need of\nprofiting by the fish harvest as most of the men were. He had worked\nin the water all his life, and knew more about the habits of some of\nthe creatures we caught than I did. When we came to go to my house,\nand he saw the specimens I had preserved there, he seemed to take a\nmore intelligent interest in them than any other man I had ever had,\nand I was glad to be able to hire him to work for me all of the time,\nbarring the few days he reserved for pearl fishing.\n\nThe season which followed proved to be an unusually successful one\nfor the divers. The crop of oysters was large, and many pearls were\nfound. The gems which were to go to the Sultan were superb, and there\nwould be enough of them to make a truly royal necklace.\n\nOne night about six months after the \"macasla\" festival I woke suddenly\nfrom a sound sleep, with that strange feeling which sometimes comes to\none at night, that I was not alone. While I lay listening and peering\ninto the darkness of the room in which I slept, I heard a soft splash\nin the water beneath me, such as a big fish might have made if he had\ncome to the surface, and diving back had struck the water with his\ntail. It had been high tide soon after midnight, and the water was\nnot more than three or four feet beneath me. I listened a long time,\nbut could hear nothing more, and finally went to sleep again, deciding\nthat the splash I had heard had been made by a shark, and that some\nnoise which he had made before that had been what had roused me.\n\nAny further thought of my disturbance which I might have had was\ndriven from my mind in the morning, when I came out and found the\ncommunity in a state of violent commotion.\n\nThe \"gobierno,\" the house in which the \"Gobernadorcillo\" lived, had\nbeen robbed in the night, and a bag containing about half the Sultan's\npearls was gone. The government official, along with several other\nresidents, lived on shore. The houses which, like mine, were built over\nthe water, were generally inhabited by the divers and their families.\n\nThe voice of the \"Gobernadorcillo\" was not the only one raised in\nlamentation that morning, by any means, for he had very promptly\nbegun a search for the missing jewels by beating his servants and\nevery one connected with the official residence, within an inch of\ntheir lives. When this did not produce the pearls he extended the\nprocess to such other unfortunate residents of the town as fell\nunder his suspicion. I really think the only thing which kept him\nfrom killing a few of the wretches was the fear that he might by some\nchance include the thief in the number, and thus destroy all hope of\ngetting back the stolen gems.\n\nNo man, woman or child was allowed to leave the village, and so\nthorough was the system by which one of those deputy tax collectors\nkept track of his people, that he knew every one by name, and knew just\nwhere each one should be found. His superiors required a certain sum\nof money from each tax collector. They did not care in the smallest\ndegree where or how he got the money, but a certain amount he must\nturn in at stated times, or else be put in prison and have other\nunpleasant things done to him. So it stood the \"Gobernadorcillo\"\nin good stead to know who his people were, and where they were,\nand how much each person could be made to pay.\n\nAs soon as his arm was rested from the beating he had given the\nsuspected natives the official began a personal search of each house\nin the village. The native houses are so simple, and their stock\nof furniture so small, that it was no great task to make a thorough\ninspection of the entire place. What little furniture each house had\nwas outside of it when the examination of that house was completed. It\nwas fortunate for the people who lived in the houses built over the\nwater that their homes were visited at low tide, for in the state\nof the examiner's temper when he visited them I think their effects\nwould have gone out into the sea just as quickly as they went out on\nto the sand.\n\nEven my house came under the terms of the universal edict, although\nmy things were not used so harshly as were those of the natives,\nwhich was fortunate for me, for I had hundreds of specimens packed,\nand many more ready to pack, which I should have been very sorry\nindeed to have had dumped out of doors.\n\nMy relations with the Governor had always been pleasant. He really was\nquite as good a man as any one in his place could be expected to be. We\nhad gotten along very well together, and I was glad now that this was\nso. When he came to my house he contented himself with looking through\nthe part of the building where the native servant who cooked for me\nworked and lived. Poljensio slept at home, and spent only the daytime\nat my house. The search of that part of the establishment over, the\nworried official sat down in my work room to rest for a few minutes,\ncool himself off, and bewail the fate which had brought him such ill\nluck. Poljensio, who was washing sponges on the platform outside,\nand had for this reason not been at his brother's house, where he\nslept, when that domicile was searched, was called in, and while\nhis official master rested, was made to strip himself stark naked,\nand turn his few slight garments--the clothing of a Moro is always an\nuncertain quantity--inside out to show that nothing was hidden therein.\n\nKnowing the place so well as I did, and the means at the command of the\n\"Gobernadorcillo,\" I could not for the life of me see how any one who\nhad stolen the pearls could keep them, or hide them, for that matter,\nunless they had been thrown back into the sea again.\n\nSo far as the governor himself was concerned he would not suffer from\nthe loss. The yearly crop of pearls was not like the money tax, a\nstated sum, nor could the Sultan enforce his claims as did the Spanish\ngovernment. His title to the fisheries was too slight for it to be\npolicy for him to make trouble. Besides that, Sulu was so far away that\nits ruler might never hear that this year's crop had been larger than\nusual. Not all the gems had been taken. The governor could turn over\nwhat had been left him, and it was not at all likely that any questions\nwould be asked. In fact, if it had not been for his evident concern,\nwhich I did not believe him clever enough to have simulated, I would\nalmost have believed he had stolen the pearls himself. He certainly\nwas indefatigable in his attempts to find the missing property. Not\na native left the village for any purpose that his clothing and his\nboat, if he was going out upon the water, were not inspected.\n\nMy own stay in Palawan was nearly ended at the time, and it was\nnot long after that before I had completed my collections, packed\nmy specimens, and was ready to go. Poljensio had agreed to go with\nme as far as Manila, to handle my freight and baggage, and to help\nme there about repacking and shipping my specimens. On my going to\nEurope he was to return to Palawan.\n\nWhen I was ready to go, and had my luggage in shape to be sent on\nboard the sail boat which was to take me to a port visited by the\nmonthly steamer to Manila, I wondered if the \"Gobernadorcillo\" would\nlet me go. He proved very obliging, however, shook hands, and hoped\nI would have a pleasant voyage. Poljensio, though, had to submit to\nthe usual ordeal of having his clothing searched. Luggage he had none,\nso he was not troubled in that respect.\n\nI had planned to stop in Hong Kong a month on my way to Europe. On\nthe morning of the day that I was to leave there I was surprised to\nreceive a package by one of the local English expresses of the city,\nand more surprised to find that the package contained a small box of\nspecimens which had been missing when I had repacked my property at\nManila. The specimens in this box were particularly choice ones, and\ntheir loss had been as annoying as it had been unaccountable. The\npleasure which I felt in getting them back, though, was nothing\ncompared to my amazement when I found along with the package another\nsmall one containing a letter from Poljensio.\n\nThe letter, if I had chosen to put it among my specimens, would\nhave ranked, I am sure, among the greatest curiosities of the whole\ncollection. Poljensio was not a scholar. His accomplishments lay\nin the line of diving and swimming; in gathering pearls, and such\nthings as that. He never would have wasted his time in struggling\nwith pen and paper, now, if the nature of the correspondence had\nnot been such that he could not safely entrust it to any one else;\nand the full comprehension of the remarkable document, written in the\nmingled native and Spanish languages, with which he had favored me,\nwas not vouchsafed to me at the first reading, or the second.\n\nTranslated, and made as nearly coherent as possible, it ran about\nlike this:\n\n\"I stole the pearls. I only took half, so not too much\" (scrimmage,\nfuss, row, trouble,--the native word he used meant no one of these\nexactly, and yet included them all) \"would be made. I was tired of\nworking so hard, and the sharks, and not getting anything for it but\nshells. I made up my mind I would do it soon after I went to work for\nyou. I went diving after that only that I be not suspected. I knew\nall of us native people would be searched, but I thought he would\npass you by. So that night, after I had got the pearls, I swam out to\nyour house, climbed up through the floor, and hid the bag in a place\nwhere I would know. Then, one day, when I packed a fine big shell,\nI hid the bag in it, and marked the box. When we got to Manila I\nstole the box. I sorrow to make you this bad time, but have no other\nway. I take good care of box, though, after I take pearls out, to\nbring it here with me, and now I send it back. I sell all the pearls\nhere but one, to China merchant, for money enough to make me always a\nrich man. I don't think I go back to Palawan. One pearl I save back,\nand send you with this letter, to remember by it Poljensio.\"\n\nThat was what was in the package with the letter. The pearl he had\nsaved; this one which I wear.\n\nAs I said in the first place, I am ready give it up when I can find\na man who has a better claim to it than I have. My right of ownership\nin the gem is not, I confess, very substantial; but whose is it?\n\nIt was not the \"Gobernadorcillo's,\" for he was only an agent; and\nbesides that he left Palawan not long after I did, as I have found\nout by inquiry, and I cannot learn where he now is.\n\nThe Sultan of Sulu who reigned then is dead, and if the gem belonged\nto him it did not belong to his successor; for the friends of the\nfirst ruler declared that the man who gained the throne after him was\na false claimant. Should I send it to the dead man's heirs? He had\nno son, and one can hardly divide one pearl among four hundred widows.\n\nOnly Poljensio is left, and his claim, even if I could find him,\nI fear would be counted hardly legal. Quite likely he would not take\nit back, even if I found him; and sometimes, when I reflect upon what\nwould probably have happened to me if the bag of stolen pearls had\nbeen found by any chance in my house, I am not sure that I should\nfeel like offering the gem to him.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n            A Great American Novel of the Civil War.\n                      THE GRAPES OF WRATH.\n                   A Tale of North and South.\n                    BY MARY HARRIOTT NORRIS,\n        Author of _The Gray House of the Quarries_, etc.\n\n12mo, doth, decorative, with six full-page illustrations by\nH. T. Carpenter.                                                $1.50\n\nA really great American novel of the Civil War, which will appeal\nwith equal force to-day to the Southern as well as to the Northern\nreader. The title is, of course, suggested by Mrs. Howe's line,--\n\n    \"He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath\n    are stored.\"\n\nThe story is developed from the fortunes, amid the vicissitudes of war,\nof an old New Jersey family, one son of which had settled in Virginia,\nbecoming a general in Lee's army. There is little fighting and no cheap\nheroics in the book, but it gives a clearer picture and a more intimate\nand impressive understanding of what the great struggle really meant\nto Unionist and to Confederate alike than many a military history.\n\n\n\n              A Romance of the Iowa Wheat Fields.\n                     THE ROAD TO RIDGEBY'S.\n                  BY FRANK BURLINGAME HARRIS.\n\n12mo, cloth, decorative.                                        $1.50\n\nA simple but powerful story of farm life in the great West, which\ncannot fail to make a lasting impression on every reader. In this\nbook Mr. Harris has done for the wheat fields what Mr. Westcott has\ndone for rural New York and Mr. Bacheller for the North country. It\nis in no way imitative of _David Harum_ or _Eben Holden_; and, unlike\neach of these books, it is not in the portrayal of a single quaint\ncharacter that its power consists. Mr. Harris has taken for his story\na typical Iowa farmer's family and their neighbours; and, although\nevery one of the characters is realistically portrayed, the sense of\nproportion is never lost sight of, and the result is a picture of real\nlife, artistic in the highest sense, as being true to nature. It is\na wholesome story, full of the real heroism of homely life, a book\nto make the reader better by strengthening his belief in the truth\nof self-sacrifice and the survival of sturdy American character.\n\n\n\n         A Remarkable Study of Social Life in America.\n                          DIFFERENCES\n                        BY HERVEY WHITE.\n\n12mo, cloth, decorative, 320 pages.                             $1.50\n\n\"It is treating the poor as a class and employing any method of\nhandling them that I object to.... Why can't they be treated as\nindividuals, the same as other people? What would the rich think of\nmy impertinence if I went about the world treating them in a peculiar\nmanner,--as if they were not real people, at all, but only 'the rich,'\nin my knowledge? \"--Hester Carr, in _Differences_.\n\n    \"_Difference_ is an extraordinary book.... The labor question\n    is its primary concern, and the caste barrier which modern\n    conditions have erected between the man who works and the man\n    who merely lives. This is no new theme, yet _Differences_ is\n    new, and its place in thoughtful literature awaits it. The\n    only argument presented by Mr. White is contained in the\n    picture he spreads before us. It is real, and set out with\n    bold, firm strokes, and there is no attempt to be merely\n    artistic. Genevieve Radcliffe, the rich society girl,\n    who goes to work charity with the poor, and John Wade,\n    the workman, whose situation involves all the tragedy of\n    metropolitan poverty, are human, if they be not typical. They\n    embody the 'differences', and, if they do not point the way\n    to equality, it is because American civilization is not yet\n    ripe for them. Withal, the book is not a tract. It is worth a\n    thousand such. Informed throughout with a tender simplicity,\n    a sense of the beauty of common things, and a sincerity that\n    brooks no question, it carries equal appeal to the student of\n    economics and to the lover of human feeling.\"--_Philadelphia\n    North American._\n\n    \"There is no end of philosophy in books about the poor\n    and how to reach them and send rays of sunshine into their\n    world; but few books get at the real 'Differences' that exist\n    between the wealthy classes and the poor as does Mr. Hervey\n    White.... _Difference_ is vitally interesting, both as a\n    story and as a moral lesson.... It is written with wholesome\n    enthusiasm and an intelligent survey of real facts.\"--_Boston\n    Herald._\n\n    \"The method employed by Mr. Hervey White in _Differences_\n    is not like that of any author I have ever read in the\n    English language. It resembles strongly the work of the\n    best Russian novelists, it seems to me, and particularly\n    that of Dostolevsky, and yet it is in no sense an imitation\n    of those writers: it is apparently like them merely because\n    the author's motives and ways of thought and observation are\n    like them.... I have never before read any such treatment\n    in the English language of the life and thought of laboring\n    people.\"--Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, in _Boston Transcript_.\n\n\n\n\n          A Powerful Realistic Novel of American Life.\n                           QUICKSAND\n                        By HERVEY WHITE.\n\n12mo, cloth, decorative, 328 pages.                             $1.50\n\n\n_Quicksand_ is a strong argument against a certain condition which\nthe author believes exists too generally in American society, and\nis, in effect, an appeal for the freedom of the individual in family\nlife. It is a powerful tragedy, developing very naturally out of the\neffects of the interference of parents in the lives of their children,\nand of brothers and sisters in the affairs of each other. It becomes\ntherefore, not only the story of an individual, but the life history of\nan entire family, the members of which are portrayed with astonishing\nvividness and realism. The hero of the book also illustrates, in\nhis sufferings and failures, the unfortunate effects of a too narrow\northodoxy in religion, coupled with his family's interference with his\ngrowth out of this environment. Offsetting the tragedy of the story is\n\"Hiram,\" the \"hired man\" of the family in its earlier New England days,\nin whom, particularly, the reader's interest will centre. Patient,\nkindly, faithful, and uncomplaining, he is indeed the real \"hero\"\nof the tale, the only one free from the unfortunate environments of\nthe other characters, yet forced indirectly to suffer also because of\nthem. It is the every-day life of the every-day family that is drawn;\nand this fact, together with the boldness and fidelity of the drawing,\ngives the story its power and impressiveness.\n\n    \"Hervey White is the most forceful writer who has appeared\n    in America for a long generation.\"--_Chicago Evening Post_.\n\n    \"We cannot remember another book in which lives, thoughts,\n    emotions, souls, and principles of action have been analyzed\n    with such convincing power. Mr. Hervey White has great\n    literary skill. He has here made his mark, and he has come to\n    stay.... He is the American George Gissing, and as such some\n    day he will have to be taken into account.\"--_Boston Herald_.\n\n    \"It should insure Mr. White a permanent place in the critical\n    regard of his fellow-countrymen.... Few characters as strong\n    as that of Elizabeth Hinckley have ever been drawn by an\n    American author, and she will remain in the mind of the most\n    assiduous novel reader, secure of a place far above that held\n    by most of the puny creations of the day.\"--_Chicago Tribune_.\n\n    \"It is wrought of enduring qualities. Few novels are so\n    sustained on an elevated plane of interest.\"--_Philadelphia\n    Item_.\n\n    \"It is a novel that takes hold of one, and is not the sort\n    of book that, once begun, can be laid down without being\n    finished.\"--_Indianapolis News_.\n\n\n\n\n               Two Notable Novels by Emma Rayner.\n                        VISITING THE SIN\n       A Tale of Mountain Life In Kentucky and Tennessee.\n\n12mo, cloth, with cover designed by T. W. Ball. 448 pages.      $1.50\n\nThe struggle between the heroine's love and her determination to visit\nthe sin upon the son of the supposed murderer of her father forms the\nbasis of the story. All of the characters are vividly drawn, and the\naction of the story is wonderfully dramatic and lifelike. The period\nis about 1875.\n\n    \"A powerful, well-sustained story, the interest in which does\n    not flag from the first chapter to the last.\"--_Philadelphia\n    North American._\n\n    \"Unusually powerful. The dramatic plot is intricate, but not\n    obscure.\"--_The Congregationalist._\n\n    \"A graphic and readable piece of fiction, which will\n    stand with the best of its time concerning humble American\n    characters.\"--_Providence Journal._\n\n    \"Far ahead of most of these latter-day Southern\n    novels.\"--_Southern Star._\n\n    \"The people in the story are persistently real.\"--_Christian\n    Advocate._\n\n\n\n\n                         FREE TO SERVE\n                  A Tale of Colonial New York.\n\n12mo, cloth, with a cover designed by Maxfield Parrish. 434 pages.\n                                                                $1.50\n\n\n    \"One of the very best stories of the Colonial period yet\n    written,\"--_Philadelphia Bulletin._\n\n    \"We have here a thorough-going romance of American life in the\n    first days of the eighteenth century. It is a story written\n    for the story's sake, and right well written, too. Indians,\n    Dutch, Frenchmen, Puritans, all play a part. The scenes are\n    vivid, the incidents novel and many.\"--_The Independent._\n\n    \"The writing is cleverly done, and the old-fashioned atmosphere\n    of old Knickerbocker days is reproduced with such a touch\n    of verity as to seem an actual chronicle recorded by one who\n    lived in those days.\"--_Saturday Evening Post_, Philadelphia.\n\n    \"The supreme test of a long book is the reading of it, and\n    when one reaches the end of _Free to Serve_, he acknowledges\n    freely that it is the best book that he has taken up for a\n    long time,\"--_Boston Herald._\n\n\n\n\n                  An Irish Love Story of 1848.\n                            MONONIA.\n                   BY JUSTIN McCARTHY, M.P.,\n\nAuthor of _A History of Our Own Times_, _Dear Lady Disdain_, etc. 12mo,\ngreen cloth and gold.                                               $1.50\n\n\nMr. McCarthy has written several successful novels; but none, perhaps,\nwill have greater interest for his American readers than this volume,\nin which he writes reminiscently of the Ireland of his youth and\nthe stirring events which marked that period. It is pre-eminently\nan old-fashioned novel, befitting the times which it describes,\nand written with the delicate touch of sentiment characteristic of\nMr. McCarthy's fiction. The book takes its name from the heroine,\na charming type of the gentle-born Irish-woman. In the development of\nthe romance, the attempts for Ireland's freedom, and the dire failures\nthat culminated at Ballingary, are told in a manner which give an\nintimate insight into the history of the _Young Ireland_ movement. If\nthe book cannot be considered autobiographical, the reader will not\nforget that the author was contemporary with the events described, and\nwill have little difficulty in perceiving that many of the principal\ncharacters are strongly suggestive of the Irish leaders of that day,\nwhich gives the book scarcely less value than an avowed autobiography.\n\n    \"Mononia is drawn with all Mr. McCarthy's ancient\n    skill.\" _London Outlook_.\n\n    \"Beautiful in every sense is this 'Mononia.' It is a work\n    that we could expect from no other author, for it is largely\n    reminiscent. So, besides its attractiveness as a romance, the\n    book is attractive as an informal historical document. Read in\n    either of these lights, it will be found delightful.\"--_Boston\n    Journal_.\n\n    \"Altogether a good story.... Mononia is full of beauty,\n    tenderness, and that sweet and wholesome common sense which\n    is so refreshing when found in a woman.\"--_The Pilot_ (Boston).\n\n    \"The description of the affection of Mononia and Philip is\n    a piece of literary splendor.\"--_Boston Courier_.\n\n    \"For those who would reject its historical and autobiographic\n    phase, there remains the old-fashioned love romance, full\n    of fine Irish spirit, which is always refreshing.\"--_Mail\n    and Express_.\n\n\n\n\n                 TUSKEGEE: ITS STORY & ITS WORK\n                     By MAX BENNETT THRASHER\n\n_With an Introduction by_ BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 12mo, cloth, decorative,\n248 pages, 50 Illustrations,                                        $1.00\n\nTHE TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE, at Tuskegee, Alabama, is\none of the most uniquely interesting institutions in America. Begun,\ntwenty years ago, in two abandoned, tumble-down houses, with thirty\nuntaught Negro men and women for its first students, it has become\none of the famous schools of the country, with more than a thousand\nstudents each year. Students and teachers are all of the Negro\nrace. The Principal of the school, Mr. Booker T. Washington, is the\nbest-known man of his race in the world to-day.\n\nIn \"Tuskegee: Its Story and its Work,\" the story of the school is\ntold in a very interesting way. He has shown how Mr. Washington's\nearly life was a preparation for his work. He has given a history of\nthe Institute from its foundation, explained the practical methods\nby which it gives industrial training, and then he has gone on to\nshow some of the results which the institution has accomplished. The\nhuman element is carried through the whole so thoroughly that one\nreads the book for entertainment as well as for instruction.\n\n    _COMMENTS_.\n\n    \"All who are interested in the proper solution of the problem\n    in the South should feel deeply grateful to Mr. Thrasher\n    for the task which he has undertaken and performed so\n    well.\"--Booker T. Washington.\n\n    \"Should be carefully and thoughtfully read by every friend of\n    the colored race in the North as well as in the South,\"--_New\n    York Times_.\n\n    \"The book is of the utmost value to all those who\n    desire and hope for the development of the Negro race in\n    America.\"--_Louisville Courier-Journal_.\n\n    \"Almost every question one could raise in regard to the\n    school and its work, from Who was Booker Washington? to What\n    do people whose opinion is worth having think of Tuskegee? is\n    answered in this book.\"--_New Bedford Standard_.\n\n\n\n\nFor sale at all Bookstores, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of price,\nby the publishers,\n\n                Small Maynard & Company, Boston.","title":"Anting-Anting Stories, and Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":39893}