Read Anting-Anting Stories, and Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos Page 10
"OUR LADY OF PILAR"
"How very singular! What do you suppose they are doing?"
"I'm sure I don't know. The American mind is unequal to grapplingwith the problem of what the natives are doing out here, most of thetime. They seem to be praying. Or are they having a thanksgiving?"
"I don't know. All women, too!"
The young American woman and the officer who was her escort haltedtheir horses to watch better the group of people of whom they had beenspeaking. The officer was a lieutenant of the American forces stationedin Zamboanga, the oldest and most important city in Mindanao, theheadquarters of the United States military district in the Philippinesknown as the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. The young woman wasthe daughter of one of the older officers of the department, justcome to Zamboanga the day before, and in this morning's ride havingher first chance to see the strange old city to which her father hadbeen transferred from Manila a few weeks before.
In the course of this ride the young people had reached Fort Pilar, atone end of the town, a weather-beaten old fortification built years andyears before by the Spaniards as a protection against their implacablefoes, the Moros, who waged continual warfare against them from thesouthern islands of the archipelago. Circling the stone walls of thefort the riders had come upon a group of as many as fifty Visayanwomen kneeling on the ground, their faces turned devoutly toward astone tablet let into the walls.
An American soldier was doing sentry duty not far away. "Wait here,Miss Allenthorne," Lieutenant Chickering said, "and I'll find outfrom that man over there what they are doing. He's been here longenough so that probably he knows by this time." The officer canteredhis pony over to the sentry's station. The American girl, left toherself, slipped down from her pony, and hooking the bridle rein intoher elbow, walked a little nearer to the women. They did not seem tomind her in the least, and one of them--a handsome young woman nearher--when she looked up and saw that the stranger was an American,smiled, and said something in a language which Miss Allenthorne didnot understand; but from the expression on her face the American feltsure that what the woman said was meant as a welcome.
Something which this Visayan woman did a moment later excited MissAllenthorne's curiosity to a still higher pitch. The native woman drewa small photograph from the folds of her "camisa," and kissed it. Thenshe put it down on the ground between herself and the wall, and turnedto the tablet above it a face lighted with a radiance which any womanseeing would have known could have come from love alone. When she hadfinished, and had risen to her feet, she saw that the young American"senorita" was still watching her.
The two woman had been born with the earth between them, and withcenturies of difference in traditions and training. Neither couldunderstand the words which the other spoke, but when their eyes metthere went from the heart of each to the heart of the other a messagewhich did not require words to make itself understood.
With a beautiful grace of manner and expression, the Visayan wentto the other woman, and again speaking as if she thought her wordscould be understood, held out the picture which she had kissed,for the stranger to look at.
The photograph was that of a young American officer, in a lieutenant'suniform.