i.
skim organizes the constabulary.
the soldiers had gone, bag and baggage, dog, parrot, and monkey, blanket-roll and cook. i stood by the deserted convent under the lime-tree, watching the little transport disappear beyond the promontory. the house that formerly had been headquarters seemed abandoned. there was the list of calls still pasted on the door. reveille, guard-mount, mess-call, taps,—the village would seem strange without these bugle-notes. the sturdy sentry who had paced his beat was gone. when would i ever see again my old friend the ex-circus clown, and hear him tinkle the “potato-bug” and sing “ma filipino babe?” walking along the lonely shore, now lashed by breakers, i looked out on the blue wilderness beyond. it was with feelings such as robinson crusoe must [182]have had that i went back then to the empty house.
ramon, convinced that something would break loose, now that the troops were gone, had left for cagayan. his wife, maria, slept at night with a big bolo underneath her pillow. there was a “bad” town only a few miles away—a village settled by tagalog convicts, who had been conspicuous in the revolt a few years previous. the people feared these neighbors, the assassins, and they double-barred their doors at night. i was awakened as the clock struck twelve by unfamiliar noises,—nothing but the lizard croaking in the bonga-tree. again, at one, i started up. it was the rats, and from the rattling sound above i judged that the house-snake was pursuing them. at early morning came the chorus of the chanticleers. through the transparent japanese blinds i could see the huge green mountains shouldering the overhanging clouds. ah! the mysterious, silent mountains, with their wonderful, deep shadows! the work of man seemed insignificant beside them, and balingasag the lonesomest place in all the world. [183]
one morning the sharp whistle of the launch aroused the town. proceeding to the shore, i saw a boat put out from the victoria, sculled by a native deck-hand. as the sun had not yet risen, all the sea was gray, and sea and sky blended into one vast planetary sphere. two natives carrying the ample form of the constabulary captain staggered through the surf. behind them came the captain’s life-long partner and lieutenant, a slight man, with cold, steely eyes, dressed in gray crash uniform, with riding leggings. they had been through one campaign together as rough riders; for the captain had once been “sheriff of gallup county,” in the great southwest.
the house no longer seemed deserted with this company, and as they had brought supplies for two months—which included bread!—we made an early attack upon these commissaries. since the troops had left i had been existing on canned salmon and sardines. now there were cheese, guava, artichokes, mushrooms, ham, bacon, blackberry-jam, and fruits. the captain, natural detective that he was, caught one of the muchachos stealing a bottle of cherries, which he had thrown out the [184]window during the unpacking, with the purpose of securing it next day. on being accused, he made a vigorous protest of his innocence, but after a few minutes he returned triumphantly with the intelligence that he had “found” that which was lost.
a heavy rain and the tail-end of a monsoon kept my two guests prisoners for a week. the presidente of the town had issued a bandilla that all able-bodied men were wanted to enlist in the constabulary. accordingly came awkward natives to the house, where the interpreter examined them; for all the spanish that the genial captain knew—and he had lived already two years in the philippines—was “bueno,” “malo,” “saca este,” and “sabe that?” the candidates were measured, and, if not found wanting, were turned over to the native tailor to be fitted with new uniforms. some of the applicants confessed that they had once been insurrectos; but so much the better,—they knew how to fight. they said that they were not afraid of moros—though i think that they would rather have encountered tigers—and when [185]finally dressed, a few days later, they appeared upon the streets self-conscious, objects of adoration in the eyes of all the local belles.
the time came when the mists dissolved upon the mountains, and the little clouds scudded along overhead as though to get in from the rain. the sun had struggled out for a few minutes, and the wind abated. but the sea had not forgotten recent injuries, and all night we could hear the booming of the surf. the launch, drowned in a nebula of spray, dashed by, and sought an anchorage in safer waters. so it was decided that we go to cagayan in a big banca. but it was a most unwieldly craft to launch. we got the arms and ammunition safe aboard, and then, assisted by the sturdy corporals and miscellaneous natives, we pushed out. a rushing comber swept the boat and nearly swamped it. but we bore up till about a hundred yards from shore, when a gigantic breaker bearing down upon the banca—which had been deflected so as to present a broadside—filled her completely, and she went down in the swirling spume. up to our necks in surf, we labored for [186]an hour, together with the population of the fishing village, finally to save the wretched boat and most of the constabulary ordnance.
but, alas for the lieutenant! he had lost one of his riding-leggings, and for half a day he paced the shore in search of it. he offered rewards to any native who should rescue it. lacking a saving sense of humor, he bemoaned his fate, and when he did give up the search, he discontinued it reluctantly. and two years afterwards, when i next met him, he inquired if i had seen his legging washed up on the beach. “some native must be sporting around in it,” he said. “it set me back five dollars, mex.”
it was a sleepy day at cagayan. the tropical river flowed in silence through the jungle like a serpent. in capitan a-bey’s house opposite, a se?orita droned the stepanie gavotte on the piano. capitan a-bey’s pigs rooted industriously in the compound. the teacher who had hiked in from el salvador, unconscious that his canvas leggings were transposed, was engaged in a deep game of solitaire. [187]
upon the settee in the new constabulary residence, his long legs doubled up ridiculously, still in khaki breeches and blue flannel army shirt, lay “skim,” with a week’s growth of beard upon his face, sleeping after a night-ride over country roads. after an hour or two of rest he would again be in the saddle for two days.
late in the afternoon we started on constabulary ponies for balingasag—a ride of thirty miles through quagmires, over swollen streams and mountain trails. our ponies were the unaccepted present from a quack who thus had tried to buy his way out of the calaboose, where he was “doing time” for trying to pass himself off as a prophet.
the first few miles of the journey led through the cloistered archways of bamboo. we crossed the kauffman river, swimming the horses down stream. then the muddy roads began. the constant rains had long ago reduced them to a state of paste, and although some attempt had been made to stiffen them with a filling of dried cocoanut-husks, the sucking sound made by the ponies’ hoofs was but a prelude to our final floundering in the mud. there was a narrow ridge on one [188]side near a thorny hedge, and, balancing ourselves on this, we made slow progress, meanwhile tearing our clothes to shreds. skim had considerable difficulty with his long legs, for he could have touched the ground on either side, but he could use them to advantage, when it came to wading through the slosh ourselves, and dragging the tired ponies after us. at night we “came to anchor” in a village, where we purchased a canned dinner in a spanish store. the natives gathered around us as we sat, all splashed with mud, on wicker chairs in front of the provincial almacen. skim talked with the spaniard, alternating every word with “estie,” while the don kept swallowing his eyes and gesturing appropriately. skim was convinced that his castilian was fine art.
we slept in a deserted schoolhouse, lizards and mosquitoes being our bed-fellows. skim, the rough cowboy that he was, pillowed his head upon the horse’s flank, and kept his boots on. at the break of day, restless as ever, he was off again. crossing the jimenez river in a native ferry while the horses swam, we passed through tiny villages that had not seen a white man for a year. our [189]journey now lay through the woods, and skim, dismounting, stalked along the narrow trail as though he had been shod in seven-league boots. i heard a pistol shot ring out, and, coming up, found skim in mortal combat with an ape. then one more plunge into a river, and another stream spanned by a bamboo pole, which we negotiated like funambulists, dragging the steeds below us by their halters,—then balingasag.
in town the big vaquero was a schoolboy on a holiday. he was a perfect panther for prowling around the streets at night, and in the market-place, where we now missed the scattering of khaki, he became acquainted with the natives, and drank tuba with them. he came back with reports about the resources of the town. there was an indian merchant stranded at ramon’s, who had a lot of watches for sale cheap. he purchased some lace curtains at the chino store, and yellow pi?a cloth for a mosquito bar, and with this stuff he had transformed his bed into a perfect bower. it was almost a contradiction that this wild fellow, who was more accustomed to his boots and spurs at night than to pajamas, should have [190]taken so much pains to make his sleeping-quarters dainty. streamers of baby-ribbon fell in graceful lines about the curtains, while the gauze mosquito-bar was decorated with the medals he had won for bravery.
a photograph of his divorced wife occupied the place of honor near the looking-glass. in reminiscent moods skim used to tell how chita, of old mexico, had left him after stabbing him three times with the jeweled knife that he had given her. “i didn’t interfere with her,” he said, “but told her, when she pricked me with the little knife, it was my heart that she was jabbing at.” skim also told me of his expedition into “dead man’s gulch,” “death valley,” and the suddenly-abandoned mining-camps among the hills of california. and he had met the daughter of a millionaire in frisco, and had seen her home. “and when i saw the big shack looming up there in the woods,” he said, “i thought sure that i’d struck the wrong farmhouse.”
skim rented a small place surrounded by a hedge of bonga palms, and here he entertained the village royally. he was a favorite among the [191]girls, and lavished gifts upon them, mostly the latest illustrated magazines that belonged to me. he ruled his awkward soldiers with an iron hand, and they were more afraid of him that of the evil one. of course, they could not understand his spanish, and would often answer, “si, se?or” when they had not the least idea of what the orders were. then they would come to grief for disobedience, or receive skim’s favorite reprimand of “blooming idiot! no sabe your own language?” when his cook displeased him, he (the cook) would generally come bumping down the stairs. the voice of skim was as the roaring lion in a storm. desertions were many in those strenuous days; for the constabulary guards were not the heroes of the hour.
always insisting on strict discipline, skim, on the day we made our trial hike, marshaled his forces in a rigid line, and, after roll-call, marched them off in order to the hills. the soldiers took about three steps to his one, and, trying to keep up with him through the dense hemp-fields, they broke ranks and ran. we followed a mountain stream to its headwaters, scrambling over bowlders, [192]wading waist-deep in the ice-cold stream, and by the time we broke the underbrush and pushed up hill, big skim had literally hiked the soldiers off their feet. they were unspeakably relieved when we sat down at noon in the cool shade, upon the brink of a deep, crystal pool, and ate our luncheon. skim, insisting that the canned quail—which retained its gamy flavor—was beyond redemption, turned it over to the soldiers to their great delight.
in spite of his severity, skim had a soft heart, and when all dressed in white and gold, he would go up to visit se?or roa and his daughters; while the girls would play duets on the piano, skim, with a little chocolate baby under either arm, would sing in an insinuating voice one of his good old cowboy songs, regardless of the fact that he was not in tune with his accompaniment. he always appeared on sundays cleanly shaven and immaculate in white, and when the girls went by his house to church, their dusky arms glowing among the gauze, appealed to him and made him sad.
no one could ever contradict skim, though [193]he couldn’t even write his own name legibly. his monthly reports were actually works of art. “seenyor inspekter of constabulery,” he would write, “i hav the honner to indite the following report. i hav bin having trubel with the moros. they was too boats of them and they had a canon in the bow. i faired three shots and too of them fell down but they al paddeled aeway so fast i coodnt catch them.” and again: “on wensday the first instant i went on a hike of seven miles. i captured three ladrones four bolos, one old gun and too durks.” then after practicing his signature for half an hour on margins of books or any kind of paper he could find, he used to sign his document with a tremendous flourish.
i rather miss the rock thrown at my blinds at 4 o’clock a. m. a little catlike sergeant, a mestizo, is in charge of the constabulary, and the men are glad. no longer does the huge six-footer, with his army colt’s, stalk through the village streets. the other day i got a note from skim: “i dont think i ain’t never going to come back there eny moar,” he wrote above the most [194]successful signature that i had ever seen. a few months later skim was badly crippled in a fight with robbers. he was sent to manila to the civil hospital. on his discharge he was promoted, and he now wears three bars on his shoulder-straps. he has been shot three times since then, and he has written, “if i dont get kilt no more, i dont think that i wont come back.”
to-day the constabulary is well organized. they have distinguished themselves time and again in battle-line. they have put down the lingering sparks of the rebellion. they look smart in their brand-new uniforms and russet boots. but it was only a year or two ago that skim had crowded their uncivilized feet into the clumsy army shoe, and knocked them around like puppets in a noah’s ark. skim, if you ever get hold of these few pages written in your honor, here’s my compliments and my best wishes for another bar upon your shoulder-straps, and—yes, here’s hoping that you “won’t get killed no more.” [195]
ii.
last days at oroquieta.
i had been visiting the teachers at el salvador, who occupied a spanish convent, with a broad veranda looking out upon the blue sea and a grove of palms. it was a country of bare hills, which reminded one somewhat of colorado. nipa jungles bristled at the mouths of rivers, and the valleys were verdant with dense mango copses. we made our first stop on the way from cagayan on sunday morning at a village situated in a prairie, where a drove of native ponies had been tethered near the nipa church. the roads were alive with people who had been attending services or who were on the way to the next cock-fight. falling in with a loquacious native, who supplied us with a store of mangoes, we rode on, and reached tag-nipa or el salvador late in the afternoon.
one of the teachers, “teddy,” might have actually stepped from out the pages of kate greenaway. he had a large, broad forehead, and [196]a long, straight nose. he conducted a school of miserable little girls, and in the evening, like a village preacher, he would make his pastoral calls with a “hello, girlie!” for each child he met. when he was pleased at anything, he used to clap his hands, exclaiming, “goodie!” “teddy” envied me “my baccalaureate enthusiasm,” and, encouraged evidently by this quality, he would read chaucer in a sing-song voice, or, when this recreation failed, would make up limericks to a guitar accompaniment. his partner was the one who wore the transposed leggings, and who walked as though continually following a plow.
leaving for oroquieta, in a moro sailboat stocked with chinese pigs and commissaries that belonged to one called “jac-cook” by the natives, or “the great white father”—a new zealander who could have posed as an apollo or a hercules—the sailors whistled for wind, and finally succeeded in obtaining it. the moon rose early over the dark waters, and the boat, behaving admirably, rode the huge waves like a cockle. we had nearly gone to pieces on a coral reef that night if “jac-cook,” suddenly aroused by the unusual [197]sound of breakers, had not lowered sail in time to save the ship from running on the sharp rock half a mile from land. the sailors, perfectly incompetent, and panic-stricken at the course the boat was taking, blundered frightfully as the new zealander assumed command.
no doubt the best mess in the town at that time was the one conducted by the members of the hospital detachment. “shorty,” who did the cooking, was a local druggist in his way; that is, he sold the natives talcum powder, which they bought at quinine rates. the acting steward, whom all the filipinos called “francisco,” though his name was louis, was a butcher, and a doctor too. catching the spaniard’s goat out late at night, he knocked it in the head. the carcass was then taken into the dissecting-room, where it was skinned and dressed for the fresh-meat supply. he had acquired a local reputation as a medico, to the disgust of the real army doctor, who, for a long time, could not imagine why his medicines had disappeared so fast. then there was “red,” who had the art of laziness down fine, and who could usually be found playing monte with the [198]natives. with the money he had won at monte games and chicken-fights, he intended to set up a drugstore in america.
in a downpour of rain i left one morning for aloran, down the coast and up the winding river. prisoners furnished by the presidente manned the banca. they were guarded by a barefooted municipal policeman, who, on falling presently to sleep, would probably have lost his mauser overboard had not one of the convicts rescued it and courteously returned it to him. it was a wet and lonesome pull up the aloran river, walled in on both sides by nipa jungles, and forever winding in and out. after an hour or so, while i was wondering what we were coming to, we met a raft poled down the stream with “red” and a young austrian constabulary officer aboard.
finding a little teacup of a house, i moved in, and, before an interested throng of natives, started to unpack my trunks and boxes with a sense of genuine relief; for i had had four months of traveling and living out of steamer-trunks. but i returned to oroquieta all in good time for the doctor’s birthday and the annual oroquieta ball. i [199]found the doctor wandering about aloran late one afternoon; for he had been attending a sick chinaman. we started back together through the night, and, in the darkness, voices greeted us, or snarled a “buenas noches” at us as we passed. bridges that carabaos had fallen through were crossed successfully, and we arrived at oroquieta during the band concert.
the foreign colony at oroquieta was more interesting than the person? dramatis of the “canterbury tales.” where to begin i do not know. but, anyway, there was my old friend the constabulary captain, “foxy grandpa,” as we called him then, because when he was not engaged in telling how he had arrested somebody in arizona, he was playing practical jokes or doing tricks with cards and handkerchiefs. and then there was the “arizona babe,” a blonde of the southwestern type, affianced to the commissary sergeant. the wife o￡ the commanding officer, a veritable o’dowd, and little flora, daughter of o’dowd, who rode around town in a pony cart, were leaders of society for the subpost.
then you could take a stool in front of [200]paradies’s general store, and almost at any time engage the local teacher in an argument. you would expect, of course, that he would wander from his topic till you found yourself discussing something entirely foreign to the subject, but so long as he was talking, everything was satisfactory. there were the two greek traders who had “poisoned the wells” out lobuc way,—so people said. and i must not forget “jac-cook,” whose grandfather, according to his own report, had been a cannibal, a king of cannibals, and eaten a roast baby every morning for his breakfast. jack was a soldier of fortune if there ever was one. he could give you a recipe for making poi from ripe bananas and the milk of cocoanuts, or for distilling whisky from fermented oranges,—both of which formulas i have unfortunately lost. he recommended an exclusive diet of raw fish, and in his youth he had had many a hard battle with the shark and octopus. his one regret was that there were no sharks in the oroquieta bay, that, diving under, he could rip with a sharp knife. “to catch the devil-fish,” he used to say, “you whirl them rapidly around [201]your arm until they get all tangled up and supine-like.” and once, like ursus, in “quo vadis,” he had taken a young bull by the horns and broken its neck.
all members of good standing in the colony received their invitations to the birthday party. old vivan, the ex-horse-doctor of the insurrectos, went out early in the morning to cut palms. the floor was waxed and the walls banked with green. the first to arrive was “fresno bill,” the cottobato trader, in a borrowed white suit and a pair of soiled shoes. then came the bronzed norwegian captain of the delapaon, hearty and hale from twenty years of deep-sea sailing from the java coast to heligoland. came paradies, the little german trader, in his finest blacks, and chose a seat off in one corner of the room. then “foxy grandpa” and the “arizona babe” arrived, and the old maid from zamboanga, who, when expression failed her, would usurp the conversation with a “blab, blab, blab!” and as the serpent made for old laoco?n, so she now made for “fresno bill.”
half an hour more and the party was in full [202]swing. native musicians, stationed on the landing, furnished the music, and vivan, the filipino chesterfield, with sweeping bows to every one, was serving the refreshments. padre pastor, in his black gown, with his face all wreathed in smiles, was trying to explain to the schoolteacher’s wife that “stars were the forget-me-nots of heaven.” the young commissary sergeant had secured an alcove for the “arizona babe,” and “foxy grandpa,” taking a nip of something when his good wife’s back was turned, was telling his best anecdote of the southwest, “ichabod crane,” the big-boned kansan—who had got the better of us all that afternoon in argument—swinging his arms, and with his head thrown back, was trying to herd the people into an old-fashioned reel. grabbing the little daughter of the regiment together with the french constabulary officer—they loved each other like two cats—he shouted, “salamander, there! why don’t you salamander?” entering into the fun more than the rest, the genial army doctor “kept the ball a-rolling.” [203]
for the doctor was a southerner, as many of the army people are. in his dual function of physician-soldier, he could boast that he had killed more men, had more deaths to his credit, than his fellow officers. he was undoubtedly the best leech in the world. when off duty he assumed a japanese kimono, which became him like the robes of nero. placing his sandaled feet upon the window-sill, he used to read the army and navy journal by the hour. although he had a taste for other literature, his studies were considerably hampered by a tendency to fall asleep after the first few paragraphs. he spent about four weeks on “majorie daw.” when he was happy—and he generally was happy—he would sing that favorite song of his, “o, ca’line.” it went:
“o, ca’line! o, ca’line!
can’t you dance da pea-vine?
o, my jemima, o-hi-o.”
but he could never explain satisfactorily what the “pea-vine” was. his “ring around and shake a leg, ma lady,” was a triumph in the lyric line. [204]
we used to walk to lobuc every afternoon to purchase eggs. the doctor’s “duna ba icao itlong dinhi?” always amused the natives, who, when they had any eggs, took pleasure in producing them. it was with difficulty that i taught him to say “itlog” (egg) instead of “eclogue,” which he had been using heretofore. he made one error, though, which never could be rectified,—he always called a chinaman a “hen chick,” much to the disgust of the offended oriental, whose denomination was expressed in the visayan by the word “inchic.”
i pause before attempting a description of the oroquieta ball, and, like the poets, pray to some kind muse to guide my pen. to-night i feel again the same thrill that i felt the night of the grand oroquieta ball. the memories of oroquieta music seem as though they might express themselves in words:
“the stars so brightly shine,
but ah, those stars of thine!
are none like yours, bonita,
beyond the ocean brine.”
[205]
and then i seem to see the big captain—“foxy grandpa”—beating the bass drum like that extraordinary man that mark twain tells about, “who hadn’t a tooth in his whole head.” i can remember how don julian, the crusty spaniard, animated with the spirit of old capulet, stood on the chair and shouted, “viva los americanos!”—and the palm-grove, like a room of many pillars, lighted by chinese lanterns.
it was a time of magic moonlight, when the sea broke on the sands in phosphorescent lines in front of the kiosko. far out on the horizon lights of fishing-boats would glimmer, and the dusky shores of siquijor or the volcanic isle of camaguin loomed in the distance. here there were little cities as completely isolated though they were parts of another planet, where the “other” people worked and played, and promenaded to the strumming of guitars. and in the background rose the triple range of mountains, cold, mysterious, and blue in the transfiguring moonlight.
the little army girl, like some fair goddess of the night, monopolized the masculine attention [206]at the ball. when she appeared upon the floor, all others, as by mutual consent, retired, and left the field to her alone. the “pearls of lobuc,” who refused to come until a carriage was sent after them, appeared in delicate gauze dresses, creamy stockings, and white slippers. and “the princess of the philippines,” diega, with her saucy pompadour, forgot that it was time to drop your hand at the conclusion of the dance. our noble ichabod was there in a tight-fitting suit of black and narrow trousers, fervently discussing with the french constabulary man whether a frock was a prince albert. paradies capered mincingly to the quick music of the waltz, and the old maid, unable to restrain herself, kept begging the doctor—who did not know how to dance—only to try a two-step with her, please. and the poor doctor, in his agony, had sweated out another clean white uniform. i had almost forgotten maraquita and the zapatillas with the pearl rosettes. she was a little queen in pink-and-white, and ere the night was over she had given me her “sing sing” (ring) and fan, and told me that i could “ask papa” if i wanted to. the next day she was just as pretty [207]in light-blue and green, and with her hair unbound. she poked her toes into a pair of gold-embroidered sandals, and seemed very much embarrassed at my presence. this was explained when, later in the day, her uncle asked me for miss maraquita’s ring.
although the cook and the muchachos ate the greater part of the refreshments, and a heart or two was broken incidentally, the oroquieta ball passed into history as being the most brilliant function of its kind that ever had been witnessed at the post.
the winter passed with an occasional plunge in the cool river, and the surf-bath every morning before breakfast. in the evening we would ride to lobuc, racing the ponies back to town in a white cloud of dust. dinner was always served for any number, for we frequently had visitors,—field officers on hunting leave, commercial drummers from cebu, the circuit judge, the captain of the delapaon. the doctor had been threatening for some time, now, to give vivan a necessary whipping, which he did one morning to that chesterfield’s astonishment. calling the servant “usted,” [208]or “your honor,” he applied the strap, and old vivan was shaking so with laughter that he hardly felt the blows. but after that, he tumbled over himself with eagerness to fill our orders. we had found the coolest places in the town,—the beach at lobuc, under a wide-spreading tree, and the thatched bridge where the wind swept up and down the river, where the women beat their washing on the rounded stones, and carabaos dreamed in the shade of the bamboo. the cable used to steady the bridge connected with the shore, the doctor explained to the old maid, was the manila cable over which the messages were sent.
the clamor of bells one morning reminded us that the fiesta week was on, and old vivan came running in excitedly with the intelligence that seven bancas were already anchored at the river’s mouth, and there were twenty more in sight. then he went breathlessly around the town to circulate the news. we rode about in flora’s pony cart, and sometimes went to visit “foxy grandpa,” wife, and “arizona babe.” “old tom,” the convict on parole for murder, waited on the table, serving the pies that mrs. g. had [209]taught the cook to make, and the canned peaches with evaporated cream. then, on adjourning to the parlor, with its pillars and white walls, the “babe” would play “old kentucky home” on the piano till the china shepherdesses danced with the vibrations, and the genial captain, growing reminiscent, would recall the story of the man he had arrested in old mexico, or even condescend to do a new trick with a handkerchief. there was a curious picture from japan in a gilt frame that had the place of honor over the piano. it was painted on a plaque of china, robin’s-egg blue, inlaid with bits of pearl,—which represented boats or something on the inland sea, while figures of men and small boys, enthusiastically waving japanese flags, all cut out of paper, had been pasted on. there was an arched bridge over the blue water, and a sampan sculled by a boatman in a brown kimono. there was a house with paper windows and a thatched roof.
... chino josé died, and was given a military funeral. the bier was covered with the stars and stripes. a company of native scouts [210]was detailed as an escort, and the local band led the procession to the church. old “ichabod,” with a long face, and in a dress suit, with a purple four-in-hand tie, followed among the candle-bearers with long strides. the tapers burning in the nave resembled a small bonfire, and exhaustive masses finally resulted, so i judge, in getting the old heathen’s spirit out of purgatory. good old chino josé! he had left his widow fifty thousand “mex,” of which the priest received his share; also the doctor, for the hypodermic injections of the past three months.
then came the wedding of bazon, whose bride, for her rebellious love, had recently been driven from her mother’s home. bazon, touched by this act of loyalty, cut his engagement with another girl and made the preparations for the wedding feast. i met the little maraquita at bazon’s reception, and conversed with her through an interpreter. “the se?orita says,” so the interpreter informed me, “she appreciates your conversation very much, and thinks you play the piano very well. she has a new piano in her house that came from paris. in a little while the se?orita will depart [211]for spain, where she intends to study in a convent for a year.” ah, maraquita! she had had an insurrecto general for a suitor, and had turned him down. and she had jilted joe, the french constabulary officer, and had rejected a neighboring merchant’s offer for her hand of fifty carabaos. i have to-day a small reminder of her dainty needlework—a family of visayan dolls which she had dressed according to the native mode.
one day the undertaker’s boat dropped in with a detachment of the burial corps aboard. the bodies of the soldiers that had slept for so long in the convent garden were removed, and taken in brass caskets back across the sea....
we started out one morning on constabulary ponies, brilliantly caparisoned in scarlet blankets and new saddles. “ichabod,” the kansas maestro, had proposed to guide us to misamis over the mountain trail. it was not long, however, before one spoke of trails in the past tense. the last place that was on the map—a town of questionable loyalty, that we had gladly left late in the afternoon—now seemed, as we remembered it, in contrast [212]with the wilderness, a small metropolis. the kansan still insisted that he was not lost. “do you know where we are?” i asked. “wa-al,” he replied, “those mountains ought to be ’way over on the other side of us, and the flat side of the moon ought to be turned the other way.” we wandered for ten hours through prairies of tall buffalo-grass, at last discovering a trail that led down to the sea. the ponies were as stiff as though they had been made of wood instead of flesh and blood.
we had thanksgiving dinner at the doctor’s. old tom did the cooking, and vivan, all smiles, waited upon the guests. stuffed chicken and roast sucking pig, and a young kid that the muchachos had tortured to death that morning, sawing its throat with a dull knife, were the main courses. padre pastor, who had held a special mass that morning for americans, “returned thanks,” rolling his eyes, and saying something about the flowers not being plentiful or fragrant, but the stars, exceptional in brilliance, compensating for the floral scantiness. the doctor sang “o, ca’line,” and the captain did tricks with the [213]napkins. everybody voted this thanksgiving a success.
the weary days that followed at aloran were relieved late in december by a visit from the doctor, and a new constabulary officer named johnson,1 who had ridden out on muddy roads, through swimming rice-pads, across swollen rivers. when the store of commissaries was exhausted, we rode back, and johnson came to grief by falling through an open bridge into a rice-swamp, so that all that we could see of him was a square inch of his poor horse’s nose. we pulled him out, and named the place “johnson’s despair.” [214]
our christmas eve was an eventful one. the transport trenton went to pieces on our coral reef. we were expecting company, and when the boat pulled in, we went down to the beach to tell them where the landing was. “we thought that you were trying to tell us we were on a rock,” the little cavalry lieutenant, who had been at work all night upon the pumps, said, when we saw him in the morning. it was like a shipwreck in a comic opera, so easily the vessel grounded; and at noon the next day we were invited out on shipboard for a farewell luncheon. the boat was listed dangerously [215]to port, and, as the waves rolled in, kept bumping heavily upon the coral floor. the hull under the engines was staved in, and, as the tide increased, the vessel twisted as though flexible. broken amidships, finally, she twisted like some tortured creature of the deep. the masts and smokestacks branched off at divergent angles, giving the ship a rather drunken aspect. at high tide the masts and deck-house were swept off; the bow went, and the boat collapsed and bent. by evening nothing was left except the bowsprit rocking defiantly among the breakers, a broken skeleton, the keel and ribs, and the big boiler tumbling and squirting in the surf.
there were three shipwrecked mariners to care for,—the bluff captain, one of nature’s noblemen, who had spent his life before the mast and on the bridge, and who had been tossed upon many a strange and hostile coast. he had a deep scar on his head, received when he was shanghaied twenty years before. he told strange stories of barbaric women dressed in sea-shells; of the pitcairn islanders, who formerly wore clothes of [216]papyrus, but now dressed in the latest english fashion, trading the native fruits and melons for the merchandise of passing ships.
then there was mac, the chief, a stunted, sandy little man, covered with freckles, and tattooed with various marine designs. he loved his engine better than himself, and in his sorrow at its break-up, he was driven to the bottle, and when last seen—after asking “ever’ one” to take a drink—was wandering off, his arms around two filipino sailors. coming to life a few days later, “mac ain’t sayin’ much,” he said, “but mac, ’e knows.” yielding to our persuasion, he wrote down a song “what ’e ’ad learned once at a sailors’ boardin’ ’ouse in frisco.” it was called “the lodger,” and he rendered it thus, in a deep-sea voice:
“the other night i chanced to meet a charmer of a girl,
an’, nothin’ else to do, i saw ’er ’ome;
we ’ad a little bottle of the very finest brand,
an’ drank each other’s ’ealth in crystal foam.
i lent the dear a sover’ign; she thanked me for the same
an’ laid ’er golden ’ead upon me breast;
but soon i finds myself thrown out the passage like shot,—
a six-foot man confronts me, an’ ’e says:
chorus—
i’m sorry to disturb you, but the lodger ’as come,” etc.
[217]
the feature of the song, however, was mac’s leer, which, in a public hall, would have brought down the house, and which i feel unable to describe.
the mate, aroused by the example of the chief, rendered a “tops’l halliard shanty,” “blow, bullies, blow.” it was almost as though a character had stepped from pinafore, when the athletic, gallant little mate, giving a hitch to his trousers, thus began: “strike up a light there, bullies; who’s the last man sober?” song.
“o, a yankee ship came down the river—
blow, bullies, blow!
her sails were silk and her yards were silver—
blow, my bully boys, blow!
now, who do you think was the cap’n of ’er?
blow, bullies, blow!
old black ben, the down-east bucko—
blow, my bully boys, how!”
”’ere is a shanty what the packeteers sings when, with ’full an’ plenty,’ we are ’omeward bound. it is a ’windlass shanty,’ an’ we sings it to the music of the winch. the order comes ’hup anchors,’ and the a one packeteer starts hup: [218]
”’we’re hom’ard bound; we’re bound away;
good-bye, fare y’ well.
we’re home’ard bound; we leave to-day;
hooray, my boys! we’re home’ard bound.
we’re home’ard bound from liverpool town;
hooray, my boys, hooray!
a bully ship and a bully crew;
good-bye, fare y’ well.
a bucko mate an’ a skipper too;
hooray, my boys, we’re home’ard bound!’”
for the old maid this was the time the ages had been waiting for. what anxious nights she spent upon her pillow or before the looking-glass; what former triumphs she reviewed; and what plans for the conquest she had made, shall still remain unwritten history. when she was ready to appear, we used to hear her nervous call, “doctor! can i come over?” poor old maid! she couldn’t even wait till she was asked. how patiently she stirred the hot tomato soy the captain made; o yes! she could be useful and domestic. how tenderly she leaned upon the arm of the captain’s chair, caressing the scar upon his head “where he was shanghaied!” then, like othello, he would entertain her with his story about the ladies in the sea-shell clothes, or of the time when [219]he had “weathered the horn” in a “sou’wester.” she was flurried and excited all the week. the climax came after the captain left for iligan. the old maid learned somehow that he was going to manila on a transport which would pass by oroquieta but a few miles out. sending a telegram to the chief quartermaster whom she called a “dear,” she said that if the ship would stop to let her on, she could go out to meet it in a banca. though the schoolmaster and his wife had also requested transportation on the same boat, the old maid, evidently thinking that “three made a crowd,” wired to her friend the quartermaster not to take them on.
we met the old maid almost in hysterics on the road to lobuc. “o, for the love of god!” she cried, “get me a boat, and get my trunk down to the shore. i have about ten minutes left to catch that ship.” it was old ichabod who rowed her out in the canoe—the old maid, with the sun now broken out behind the clouds, her striped parasol, and a small steamer trunk. it was a mad race for old ichabod, and they were pretty well drenched when the old maid climbed aboard the [220]transport, breathless but triumphant. i have since learned that dido won her wandering ?neas in manila, and that the captain finally has found his “bucko mate.”
it was old ichabod’s delight to teach a class of sorry-looking se?oritas, with their dusty toes stuck into carpet slippers, and their hair combed back severely on their heads. the afternoons he spent in visiting his flock; we could descry him from afar, chin in the air, arms swinging, hiking along with five-foot strides. if he could “doctor up” the natives he was satisfied. he knew them all by name down to the smallest girl, and he applied his healing lotions with the greatest sense of duty, much to the amusement of the regular m.d. but ichabod was qualified, for he had once confided to me that at one time he had learned the names of all the bones in the left hand!
the colony showed signs of breaking up. the native scouts had gone, leaving their weeping “hindais” on the shore. “major o’dowd,” his wife, and flora had also departed to a station sin americanos up in the interior. at this, the doctor, [221]for the first time in his life, broke into song, after the style and meter of immortal omar:
“hiram, indeed is gone; his little rose
vamosed to lintogoup with all her clothes;
but still the pearls are with us down the line,
and many a hindai to the tubig goes.”
“tubig,” he said, “did not mean ’water.’ it was more poetical, expressing the idea of fountain, watering-place, or spa.”
it was my last day at aloran. in the morning i ascended a near elevation, and looked down upon the sleepy valley spread below. there was the river winding in and out; there was the convent, like a doll-house in a field of green. vivan had gone on with the trunks and boxes packed upon a carabao. the ponies were waiting in the compound. valedictories were quickly said; but there was little peter with his silken cheeks, the brightest little fellow i have ever known. it seemed a shame to leave him there in darkest mindanao. turning the horses into the aloran river at the ford we struck the high road near the barrio of feliz. galloping on, past “columbine” bridge, [222]“skeleton” bridge, “johnson’s despair,” and fenis, we arrived at oroquieta in good time.
but what a change from the old place as we had known it! hiram, indeed was gone. the doctor had set out for pastures new. the “arizona babe” and “foxy grandpa” had departed for fresh fields. like one who, falling asleep in a theater, awakes to find the curtain down and the spectators gone, so i now looked about the vacant town. the actors had departed, and “the play was played out.” [223]
1 johnson, the runaway constabulary officer, was killed october last by the crew of the native boat which he had captured after the steamship “victoria,” which he had seized, had grounded off the coast of negros. four of the crew were killed during the fight. in true brigand style he had taken the boat at the revolver’s point, and headed for the coast of borneo. he had ten thousand dollars of government money, and his intention was to land at various ports and make the local merchants “stand and deliver.” i gave the following interview to the reporter of the princeton (indiana) “clarion-news,” october 16, 1903:
”’johnson, the pirate,’ is dead, and buried in the lonely isle of negros. many a worse man occupies a better grave. the worst that you can say of johnson is, that he was wrong and that he liked to drink too much.
“i shall always remember him in his red shoulder straps, his khaki riding suit and leather leggings. before i had ever seen him i had heard the old constabulary captain say: ’that feller looks like a born fighter. bet he ain’t afraid of anything.’ ... the padre gave us a christmas dinner, and johnson at [214n]this function took too much of the communion wine. on the way back he reeled continually in his saddle, vomiting a stream of red wine....
“we often used to race our ponies into oroquieta neck and neck, scattering natives, chickens, and pigs to right and left. the last i saw of him was as he put out on a stormy sea in a frail moro sailboat bound for cagayan, which at that time was infested with ladrones.
“johnson was only a boy, but he had been a sailor and a soldier, and had seen adventures in the canary islands, in cuba, and the philippines. the boat that he held up and started off to borneo was one employed in questionable trade. she was a smuggler, and had formerly been in the service of the ’insurrecto’ government. she used to drop in at a port at night and pull out in the morning with neither a bill of lading nor a manifest.
“johnson should not be blamed too much for the wild escapade. the climate had undoubtedly affected him; moreover the constabulary has no business putting heavy responsibilities upon young boys.”