A place of unusual safety and concealment was selected along the Filipinos' lines, directly in front of the center of the probable point of attack by the Americans, for Marie, and for a Filipino lieutenant and a corporal, both of whom were also good shots.

Geronemo had instructed them that Marie was to have the first three shots at the general, in case he appeared on the scene of battle. If she failed to hit him, the lieutenant was then to try it. After he had taken three shots, if he, too, failed, the corporal was to be given a chance.

The next morning, December 19, the American line of battle came out of the woods on the opposite side of the valley, ready to charge on the Filipinos' position. The morning was bright and clear, so that General Lawton, with his tall figure, resplendent uniform and large white helmet, could easily be discerned by the entire Filipino command.

"I'll fix him," whispered Marie, "just wait till the firing begins, so that I can shoot without attracting attention to our position."

In a moment, the Filipinos opened fire on the Americans all along the line. The latter sought cover. General Lawton remained erect. He made an ideal target. Marie took careful aim. "Bang!" went her rifle, and at that very moment this peerless leader of men, this hero of several wars, was shot through the heart and fell dead in the arms of his aide. His only words were, "I'm shot."

"See that! What did I tell you?" snapped out Marie, "I told you I'd get him! Now for my dinero." (money).

The Americans were so angered because of the sudden death of their beloved commander that they made a mad rush forward, without orders, and swept the Filipino army from the field.

Marie returned to Manila where she claimed the reward for having shot the general. The lieutenant who was with her claimed that he did it, and by promising half of the bounty to the corporal for swearing to the lie, he proved it. Meager reports of the affair state that only $7000 of the money was actually paid over. Like Aguinaldo who crept into a cave northwest of Manila and sold out his country during the insurrection of 1896, and then could not collect his fee, so Marie, too, found herself deprived of the compensation for her bloody deed.



CHAPTER XI.

NORTH-BOUND

The controversy over the distribution of the fund in Manila for the death in any form of General Lawton permitted the unholy scheme to simmer its way into publicity. The United States authorities employed secret detectives to investigate the matter and if possible to locate the persons who claimed to be responsible for the act. Marie soon found herself under surveillance and she quickly left the city.

Making her way north on horse back along the same route she had taken when on her way to Baler about a year before, she came to the city of San Miguel where one of the hardest battles of the war had been fought. The troops engaged in this fight had become so disorganized that all formation by regiments, companies, etc., had been broken up. Unfortunately, one of the Americans' dead privates could not be identified. He was buried where he fell, and a board tombstone was placed at the head of his grave, on which was carved this lonely word,

"UNKNOWN".

As Marie passed over the old field, she saw this grave and read the solemn word on its headstone. "Alas!" she muttered, "I wonder if the same sad fate will some day overtake me."

The body of this "unknown" soldier was exhumed by the government a few months later and brought back to the United States for burial. Upon its arrival the following pathetic poem appeared in "Leslie's Weekly";

JUST AN "UNKNOWN"

After the fight was over, They found him stark and dead, Where all the bamboo thicket Was splashed and stained and red. No name was missed at roll call, Not one among them knew The slender, boyish figure Arrayed in army blue.

Among our fallen soldiers They brought him o'er the deep, And with the nation's heroes They laid him down to sleep. A starry flag above him, And on the simple stone That marked his final bivouac, The single word, "Unknown."

Perchance a mother watches, Her eyes with weeping dim, Or sweetheart waits the postman In vain for news of him. While snow of winter freezes, And April violets thrust Sweet blossoms through the grasses Above his nameless dust.

But when the last great trumpet Shall sound the reveille, And all the blue battalions March up from land and sea, He shall awake to glory— Who sleeps unknown to fame, And with Columbia's bravest Will answer to his name.

Her personal safety demanded that she continue her journey northward, without delay; also her inclination to rejoin Aguinaldo and his troops—although his exact whereabouts were unknown—invited her in this direction.

At San Isidro, from which place Aguinaldo had been driven, she saw some American soldiers administering the water cure to some Filipinos in order to make them reveal the whereabouts of their wily general. Marie was angry. She yearned to shoot, but she was no longer on the aggressive; she was now a fugitive from justice. At this place she inspected the old Filipino prison and on its walls found the names of Gilmore and his party, whom she had helped to capture at Baler, who had been imprisoned there, and who were still alive when Aguinaldo was driven from the city of San Isidro by the approach of the Americans. She determined to take her revenge on them for this water cure punishment, if she ever found them. But the opportunity never came. So journeying on toward the northern part of Luzon she had many experiences, and she came in contact with tribes whom she had never seen before and whose dialect was foreign to her. Many things combined to retard her progress. Often she grew very weary and would have turned back, except for fear.

Following up the valley of the Pampanga river and thence on northward along the Barat, she passed through the province of Nueva Ecija, crossed the Caraballo mountains which form its northern boundary, and then entered the province of Nueva Vizcaya, where she came upon the head-waters of the Rio Magat river.

In crossing the Caraballo mountains she made her way through a deep gorge at night. It was now about the middle of February. A full moon shone at its best. The weather was ideal. Journeying was abnormally pleasant. Under favorable conditions, during times of peace, the trip she was taking would have been a delightful outing. Just now things were different. Small garrisons of American soldiers had crowded forward and were occupying the largest cities along her route. As yet she had not gotten beyond them. "A guilty conscience needs no accuser"; everywhere that she went she imagined herself to be under suspicion.

Far up in the Caraballos she came across a little mountain torrent which leaped down over the mountain side from one rocky ledge to another at quite regular intervals in a series of waterfalls until it beat itself into a turbulent spray in the bed of the chasm below. The laughing moon filtered its beaming rays through the thin sheet of shimmering water as it danced down its course from precipice to precipice, and seemingly converted it into a great silvery stair-way connecting earth with heaven. Marie's heart throbbed with emotion. The dashing of the falling water on the rocks below in the bed of the canon made a hollow sound as its echoes reverberated through the gorge above.

A half mile farther up, the valley widened somewhat; and finding here some grass for her pony to forage on, she stopped for the night. The flimsy saddle was removed from her horse and converted into a crude pillow, in true cowboy style. Marie was uneasy. This was the first night in all her adventures that she had been absolutely alone, separated from both friends and foes, with no house to shelter her weary head, with the cloudless canopy of the silent heavens arched above her, the silvery moonbeams dancing in her face, and with no voice, save the echoes of her own, to answer back the whispers of night.

It is often only in such a silent nook as this, with no one present but God and self, that humanity asserts itself and the tenderest portions of the human soul become paramount and give rise to sacred thoughts. Even the savage cannot escape it, for he, too, feels his responsibility to something outside of self. No doubt the self-conscious criminal would be the most susceptible to it.

What a night for Marie! Solitude gave rise to fear; fear, to conscious criminality; a sense of wrong-doing, to grief. Would morning never come? Every time she fell into a doze her sleep was disturbed by dreams of the past. Recollections of her dying benefactor in the woods by the San Mateo river, of Gilmore's comrades bleeding by his side, and of Lawton in the arms of his aide, filled her soul with remorse and suggested to her with an unspeakable vividness that in all probability she would pay the penalty on both sides of the grave. Awakening from one awful dream, she would, after listening to the stillness of the night for a time, lapse into another. Again she would suddenly awake and begin to fumble her rosary and repeat selections from a Catholic prayer book. Would she dare to turn back? Behind her was certain death; before her, the possibility of life. She resolved to go on.

The night whiled away. Her pony ate his fill and lay down to rest. Beaded dew drops collected themselves in close proximity upon the grasses and foliage about her feet. The cool mountain air from without and fear from within caused her to shiver a great deal. Day finally came; Marie rode on.

Following the Magat river she finally reached the city of Bayombong with a population of 20,000 people. Here she learned from the natives that Aguinaldo and a loyal remnant of his appointed congress had passed through the city ahead of her, en route northward.

At Bayombong she was advised to follow down the Magat river for twenty miles, then to bear to the northeast along the pathway made by Aguinaldo and his followers in their recent retreat. This she did, crossing another range of mountains near Fort Del Pilar, which had been erected by the Filipinos to circumvent as well as to prevent the progress of the Americans, should they attempt to follow them. On the farther side of this slope she came upon the headwaters of the Rio Grande de Cagayan river, which she followed on to the north for several weeks, enjoying the hospitality of the natives along the course, until at last she came upon the beautiful city of Ilagan at the confluence of the Cagayan and Pinacanalan rivers.

It was now late in April. Marie was tired and needed rest. At Ilagan she was cordially received by the curious natives who were eager to learn some news concerning the war which was being conducted several hundred miles further south. Marie grew cheerful. There were no Americans in the city, and nobody knew of any within the valley. She felt that at last she had successfully eluded her supposed pursuers and that she was safe. Ilagan is the capital of Isabella province. It has a population of approximately 60,000 people. Marie's natural ability, information gathered in the school of experience, knowledge of the details of the war, and her willingness to talk (quite a number at Ilagan could speak Spanish) made of her a sort of responsive idol for the entire populace.



CHAPTER XII.

CROSSING THE SIERRA MADRES.

She remained at Ilagan until the middle of June, when it began to be rumored that the Americans were preparing to invade the Cagayan valley, not only soldiers from the south but with the "mosquito fleet" coming up the river from its mouth at the extreme northern end of the island of Luzon. Nobody in the city seemed to know just where Aguinaldo had gone. Part of his advance guard had arrived in the city some three months before, but he had not come, and his soldiers had soon departed for the southeast, following the valley of the Pinacanalan river.

Tired of her surroundings and impatient to join Aguinaldo, Marie departed by the same route that his soldiers had taken. From an old native living all alone in a bamboo shack on the bank of the Rio Masagan river, which empties into the Pinacanalan about eighteen miles southeast of Ilagan, she learned that Aguinaldo and his troops had started up the valley of the Masagan. This stream rises high up near the summit of the Sierra Madre mountains which parallel the eastern coast of northern Luzon for nearly five hundred miles, and are inland from the coast from ten to thirty miles.

Marie had with her three trusted natives from Ilagan. She did not want to spend another night alone in the mountains. After proceeding up the Masagan for thirty-five miles to a place where its valley narrows itself to a gorge, its bed was so strewn with huge boulders that it became impossible to travel any longer on horseback; therefore, one of the natives was sent back with the horses, and Marie and the two others continued the ascent on foot, taking with them such equipment and provisions as they could conveniently carry.

After many hardships they succeeded in crossing the range in safety and soon found themselves descending the other side. A Filipino scouting party was met at the evening of the first day's tramp down the Pacific slope. They were well supplied with food—thing Marie and her companions greatly needed. From them it was learned that Aguinaldo and his body guard and quite a complement of Filipino soldiers were secreted at the little town of Palanan on a small stream by the same name, about ten miles back from the coast and lying directly east of them on the journey which they were pursuing. This party escorted them to Filipino headquarters, which they reached July 10, 1900.

Marie was cordially welcomed by Aguinaldo, who restored her to a position on his staff and secured from her the identical information which he desired relative to the movement of the American troops, and the very information, strange to say, which led to his own discovery and capture by General Funston of the American forces in March of the following year.

Aguinaldo learned from Marie that from the Filipinos' standpoint, the war around Manila had been a dismal failure. He decided, therefore, to send one of his trusted generals south by practically the same route over which Marie had come, with information to the Filipino troops east and south of Manila to move all their available forces north with the quickest possible despatch and to place them under his immediate command so that he might not only render himself immune from capture, but take the initiative and oppose the American campaign in the valley of the Cagayan river.

In December, 1900, about three months before his capture by General Funston, Aguinaldo, having learned that the Americans were making their way in great numbers into the valley of the Cagayan, asked Marie to take up duty as a spy again; to recross the Sierra Madre mountains; visit the American lines; ascertain their number of soldiers on duty in the valley on the opposite side of the mountains and then to bring this information to him, so that when reinforcements should arrive he would know better how to undertake the campaign.

To this, Marie willingly assented, but she insisted that she could not make the trip alone over the rugged Sierra Madre mountains; that she had nearly famished crossing them the first time. Aguinaldo therefor fitted out a little expedition consisting of eight Filipinos, in addition to Marie, and a pack-train of fourteen ponies to accompany her over the divide. Nine of the animals were for riding purposes; the other five were to pack the supplies,—three of them for the outward trip, two for the incoming. In addition to the rice which they took along, they were instructed to forage as much as possible.

On December 9, the party started out on their perilous undertaking. A point far up on the mountain slope, near a refreshing mineral spring, having been reached on December 17, the party halted and established a sub-base for their return trip. It was evident to them that they had struck the wrong trail and were going to be compelled to send Marie back through a different gorge from the one by which she and her associates had come over a few months before.

Here the party divided into two relays—one to accompany Marie close to the top of the mountains, the other to remain where it was until her guides returned. At this temporary base three Filipinos and two pack-horses were left. The Filipinos thus left behind were instructed to hunt and trap all they could till their comrades returned.

The on-going squad, consisting of Marie and five native soldiers, took with them their six riding ponies and three of the pack-horses. They departed from their comrades early in the morning, December 18. By night of the second day they had gotten so near the crest they could plainly discern that in one long march Marie could cross the divide and get a safe distance down the slope on the opposite side. Coming to an old stone church they dismounted and established themselves for the night. It was December 19,—the anniversary of Lawton's death. Marie remarked about it.

This old church had partly fallen down. Vines and mosses had so interlaced themselves in climbing over its rocky walls and across its openings that they had to be cut away by the unwelcome intruders before they could gain an entrance. The stone cross on the front gable was still in place; but the old mahogany door had long since been torn from its hinges by the mountain storms, and it lay in a state of decay on the ground. An earthquake had destroyed part of the roof, and had caused the west wall to become inclined and to crumble.

Within, one end of the old altar was still found to be intact. The priest's pulpit chair had become ivy-mantled, and one handle had rotted from its fastenings and had fallen to the floor. Statues of the Saints had pitched from their moorings in the alcoves along the walls and were lying face-downward or standing on their heads amid the debris below.

What hands had built this old church, none could tell. It seemed certain that no human being had entered it for over a century. The mountain tribes who had lifted into place the huge chalk stones that composed its massive walls, under the devout leadership of some pious monk, for a place of worship, had long since perished from the earth. The mountain game which rendered possible their habitation in this altitude had vanished. Everything and everybody had evidently given way before some fierce invasion of one of their southern tribes.

Marie was busy cleaning off the trash from the massive rock that lay at the entrance to the door-way. "1765," said she; "come, see the date chiseled in the rock! I wonder what has become of the tribe that built it?"

A soldier who had made his entrance by one of the window openings, was busily engaged in prying up a huge flat stone just back of the altar. He had it loosened; he called for help to remove it. When the stone had been overturned and had fallen back onto its aged neighbors, some soft damp earth beneath it was slowly scraped away.

"Listen!" said the native who on bended knees was doing the sacrilegious work, "Did you hear that grating noise?"

He scraped again with his bolo turned edgewise, and gripping the back of it firmly with both hands. "Do you hear it?" said he. "It's here!"

In a few minutes a metallic box was pried out of the earth wherein it had lain unmolested for many years.

"Can you read the inscription on it?" asked Marie.

Carefully the sediment and rust shales were removed. The grooves in the letters and figures of the inscription were carefully cleaned out with a knife. It read

FATHER JUADANEZ 1768.

"The old father has been dead a long time," said the fellow who was doing the details of the work.

"I wonder," said Marie, "if we really ought to disturb his bones."

"Do you suppose they put any valuables in the little chest when they sealed it up?" asked another.

"It has always been customary to put in the sacred urn," said Marie.

"Cut it open!" commanded a corporal.

"I can't," said the robber; "we'll have to build a fire and melt it open."

This they did; and in it they found the dust of his bones and a number of valuables including the Patricia's gold-lined cup which Marie took and hung on her belt.

That night a terrible storm swept over the mountains. Marie and her companions crept into the old church for refuge. The ponies had been given some rice and then set free to forage as best they could. They were stampeded by the violence of the wind and rain.

The morning broke cool and clear. Everybody was astir at day-break. The ponies were gone, but plenty of rice remained. Marie soon saw a way out of the difficulty. She left three of her men at the old church to await the return of the two who were to accompany her until she reached some plan for speedy descent on the opposite side of the mountains.

The advance party started out early on foot, taking with them such a supply of rice and bananas as they could carry. Only three miles farther up they entered a canon whose rocky walls, at places almost perpendicular and seeming to form pillars for the sky, were so close together at their base that it would have been impossible to have used the ponies for travel, even though they had not retreated in the storm.

Good progress was made, and by sun-down, December 20, they had reached the upper rivulets of what afterwards proved to be the north fork of the Rio Masagan, instead of the south fork which she had previously followed. The beautiful valleys below them were plainly visible as the sun sank to rest over the distant hills. A small native village could be seen on the bank of the stream a few miles ahead. The party bivouacked for the night.

Early the next morning, after a light lunch of cold rice, Marie was off on her important mission.

Her two escorts made their way back to the old church, where after another night's rest, the five undertook their return journey to the sub-base at the spring far down the mountain side. When they reached this camp they found their ponies all returned to it; and their comrades, thinking they had all been captured or slain by the Americans, were hastily preparing to retreat. The entire party, except Marie, got back to Aguinaldo's camp at Palanan, on Christmas Day.

Marie, was therefore, left to arrange for her own return, after her spy work had been completed. She contemplated securing help from the natives at Ilagan, among whom she had previously lived for a few months.



CHAPTER XIII.

COMPENSATION

On the evening of December 24, 1900,—one of those dark nights in the Philippines when the air seems so dense that you can almost take hold of it with your hands—when the heavy clouds blanket the earth so closely that the terrible thunders seem to shake the earth in its orbit, with the deep-toned diapason of their melody—when the lightening bugs flutter from twig to twig, revealing their lanterned wings—when the human heart beats with a conscious thump in anticipation of something awful—when those who are out alone whistle to give themselves courage—when the zigzag openings rent through the clouds by the vicious lightning flashes almost reveal Eternity;—Christmas Eve, that sacred occasion which we all celebrate and shall continue to celebrate till the end of time, to commemorate the birth of our Christ,—a sharp-eyed, dare-devil Filipino crept slowly out of the city of Ilagan along a foot-path toward the Americans' camp about a mile north of that city.

When so near to the Americans that their out-posts were plainly visible during the flashes of lightning, the Filipino spy crept into a bamboo thicket not over fifty feet from an American sentry. After lying there for a half hour, waiting for the storm to come, the native grew a trifle bolder and arose to his knees. That moment the sharp eyes of the sentry caught him.

"Corporal of the Guard!" called the sentry in a loud voice.

The corporal, being suspicious that something unusual was taking place, in responding to the call took with him two armed privates.

Approaching the sentry, with light steps and in a crouching attitude, the corporal said in a heavy whisper, "What's the matter, Jack?"

The sentry was standing with gun in hand, loaded, cocked, and with bayonet fixed. Keeping his eye centered on the exact spot where he had last seen the slowly gravitating figure before him, the guard said in an undertone that denoted grave alarm, "Do you see that thicket just to the left of that big mango tree?"

"Yes;" said the corporal in a whisper, "What's the trouble?"

"There's a man in there," said the sentry. "I saw him quite plainly at first—and I think he's got a gun in his hand. You better watch out, boys. He's still there."

The corporal and the two privates fixed the bayonets on their Krag-Jorgensons, filled the magazines, slipped a shell into the barrel of each rifle, cocked them, crouched close to the ground, some ten feet apart, and began to move forward, a step at a time, between the flashes of lightening. Each time it would flash, they would peer into the thicket. Each step brought them nearer.

"There he lies!," said one of the privates in a quick out-spoken voice.

"Amigo," (a friend) said the stretched-out form, as three guns were raised in unison with the anxious muzzles pointing directly at him.

"Este no quere combate" (you don't desire to fight), said the corporal, in crude Spanish.

"Mucho amigo" (very friendly), came the reply.

"Vamose aque!" (come here), commanded the corporal.

With his eyes fixed in theirs, the Filipino raised himself slowly up and came toward the three Americans who stood but twelve feet away.

"Take him by the arms," said the corporal to the two privates who were with him, "while I look behind that rice-dyke to see if he had a gun."

"Here's what the rascal was up to," said the corporal, holding a Mauser above his head. "Good thing you saw him when you did, Jack."

The storm was coming nearer; the first gust of wind had just struck them. It blew back the Filipino's little checkered frock. The corporal saw a glitter.

"Watch out! boys, he's got a machete under his coat," said the corporal.

He was searched for more weapons and then marched inside the American lines and taken directly to headquarters. A drum-head court was convened at once and the prisoner led in.

With hands clinched, muscles taut, eyes piercing at the court, he listened to the reading of the charge:

"Caught acting as a spy for the enemy in violation of the Articles of War; armed, with intent to take the life of an American sentry on guard!"

After the testimony had been taken, the prisoner was given a chance to speak, but he absolutely refused to do so, even though addressed in several different languages and dialects.

"He spoke Spanish to us as we captured him," interjected the corporal.

"GUILTY!"

said the lieutenant-colonel who was presiding, in a firm military tone. "The court fixes the penalty at death, and sentences the prisoner to be shot at sun-rise."

"Remove him, Sergeant, and detail a firing squad to execute the order of the court!"

As the prisoner was led away, the lieutenant-colonel dropped his chin in the palms of his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees, and muttered in a semi-regretful way: "I hate to do it; but in the past we have always been so chicken-hearted about punishing these blood-thirsty natives that they have now come to regard our kindness as cowardice. I can't help but feel that it will bring the war to a close quicker if we deal with them hereafter with a good firm hand."

"I wonder what province the young fellow came from," said a major who was sitting near.

"I really don't know," replied the lieutenant-colonel: "his face shows him to be a Tagalo. Certain it is that he didn't come from Isabella province in which we are now campaigning. I wouldn't be surprised if Aguinaldo were near here and if he had sent this young dare-devil to cut down our sentry, so as to make an attack upon us tonight during the storm."

Toward morning the storm subsided. At day-break a comparatively shallow grave was hastily dug near the edge of a little bamboo thicket on a slightly elevated piece of ground. As the flickering rays of the tropical sun began to shoot above the pale, ashen-gray hue of the eastern horizon, the prisoner was led to the foot of his prospective tomb. The firing squad took its place in line.

The guns had been carefully loaded in advance for their deadly work; all but one contained blank cartridges. As usual, after loading, the guns were intermixed, so that no man might know which one contained the deadly bullet.

"Ready!" commanded the sergeant who had charge of the squad,—the corporal having taken his usual place in line with his men.

"Click," went the hammers of the rifles in unison, as they were brought to a full cock.

"Aim!" came the next command in a firmer tone. The soldiers brought their rifles to their shoulders. Every barrel was pointed at the chest of the prisoner, who now for the first time, began to tremble and turn a sickly yellow.

"Fire!" commanded the sergeant.

"Bang!" went the united roar of the guns; and as the light powder smoke cleared away and the echoes reverberated through the woods of northern Luzon, the firing squad stepped forward to view their heroic dead.

A private jumped into the grave and turned the corpse over onto its back.

That night Frank W. Pugh, of the regular army, a member of this unfortunate firing squad, who died later at Fort Worth, Texas, of fever contracted in the Philippines, sitting in his little dog-tent, meditating, wrote in his diary, which is now preserved in the archives at Washington with other relics of the war, the following appropriate poem:

A CHRISTMAS COURT-MARTIAL

"The night was dark and threatening rain, No stars were in the sky; We caught him hiding in the pines— A Filipino spy. A slender youth with coal black eyes, Brim full of frightened tears; We turned him over to the guard, I fear with callous jeers.

Next morning it was Christmas day, The sun was shining hot, A drum-head court had said, "The spy, Is sentenced to be shot." Erect before the officers, He still disdained to speak, Although a single crystal drop, Empearled his olive cheek.

Upon a long and hurried march, In light array, you see, We could not take the boy along, So stood him near a tree; Told off the little firing squad, And ordered it in line. One gun was loaded in the lot— I hope it was not mine.

Birds in the branches overhead Sang softly in the heat. The grave, a trench of steaming sand, Gaped yellow at his feet; He faced us with a dauntless air, Although his lips were white;— Our grim old Sergeant turned away, He could not stand the sight.

A flash, a roar, a cloud of smoke, And headlong to the ground He fell face downward in the grave, And died without a sound. We turned him over on his back, And DEATH the TRUTH confessed, For through his open jacket peeped A Woman's tender breast."



Marie Sampalit had earned her doom. After her grave had been filled, the soldier boys placed at its head a cartridge-box lid on which they inscribed the pitiful word,

"UNKNOWN."

THE END