CHAPTER III.
AVENGED HER LOVER'S DEATH
After Dewey's fleet had passed the island and entered the bay, proper,Marie crept up to the top of the cliff and awaited the results. As shesat there shivering with fright, day began to dawn. Presently she heardthe Spanish batteries on Point Cavite fire a heavy shot--then a secondone; and a few minutes later she saw flames of fire and smoke belchingforth from the starboard sides of Dewey's entire squadron. Then theSpanish fleet, lying off of Point Cavite, commenced a united andsimultaneous action.
Shells rent the air; the men on both fleets cheered as they beheldthe effect on the enemy of a well-directed shot; smoke-begrimedgunners, with the perspiration washing light-colored furrows downtheir manly cheeks, stood at their guns and worked like demons as theyswabbed their cannon and crowded into them shot after shot. Hissingprojectiles that missed the opposing ships and plunged into the bay,were throwing volumes of splashing foam into the air. Dewey's vesselswere moving in a figure eight and using alternately the several gunson their port and on their starboard sides, while the Spanish shipsmoved about promiscuously among each other in an awkward fashion,over a small area, and fired only as an opportunity offered.
"Thank God, I'm out of range of the demons," said Marie to a Spanishofficer who had come to her side.
Just then, there was a lull in the battle. Dewey's ships ceased firingand withdrew to the middle of the bay. No apparent damage had beensustained by the vessels of either command.
"The old fellow is going to quit," said Marie to the Spanish officerwho stood erect with his field glasses carefully trained on Dewey'ssquadron.
"They're coming this way, Marie," said the officer.
"My God! where will we go, if they come past the island and openfire on us again?" shouted Marie. "We haven't a mounted gun left toshoot with."
The officer remained quiet. Presently he said, "They've stopped andare dividing up their ammunition. Evidently they are going to resumethe fight."
He guessed it right. In thirty minutes Dewey's vessels were headingstraight for the Spanish fleet. His first shot set on fire thebeautiful Spanish flag-ship, the "Reina Christina." Then her magazineblew up. She was hastily scuttled on the beach near Cavite and desertedamid great disorder by that portion of her crew which was able toleave. The dead and the dying were left to their fate. Magazines inseveral other Spanish ships soon blew up. In a few minutes most of themwere on fire. Dewey's gunners were doing deadly execution. Hundredsof Spanish soldiers could be seen jumping from their burning vesselsinto the ocean.
"Now what is he going to do?" said Marie, with some excitement, asshe saw one of Dewey's ships, the "Concord," disengage herself fromthe rest of the fleet and head straight for a large Spanish gun-boatthat was lying off to herself and whose sole business it seemed wasto keep up a deadly fire on Dewey's flagship, the "Olympia." TheConcord literally disembowled her.
"The heartless wretches!" exclaimed Marie, as she watched anotherAmerican ship, the "Petrel," leave the line of battle and make a rapidrun right past the Spanish fleet for the village of Cavite. "I wonderwhat the villains are up to now." In a few minutes the Petrel returned,with six small vessels in tow as prizes. In addition, she was flyingat her mast head this signal, "Have destroyed eight vessels."
Dewey's ships moved over toward the city of Manila, took theirpositions in line and remained quiet.
"What time is it?" asked Marie of the Spanish officer who stoodnear her.
"Twelve-thirty," answered he, as he looked at his watch.
Marie whiled away the afternoon watching the Spaniards on Corregidorisland burying their dead comrades. She wanted to go home, but shefeared to go past Dewey's fleet.
That evening things became solemnly quiet; and the blazing sun, as itsface reddened into nightly slumber beyond the watery horizon of thePacific, bade farewell to a finished deed, which, in the history ofnaval warfare, has never been surpassed; while the pale-faced moon,moving slowly up her appointed path, looked calmly down with herquartered cheek in silent benediction on the blazing hulls of theSpanish ships as they slowly cremated their dead and dying.
The next day the Spanish Commandante on Corregidor discovered thatDewey had blockaded the port of Manila, so he restrained Marie fromstarting home for nearly a week.
Finally, she got permission to go. As she passed Dewey's fleet shewas surprised to find everything so peaceful and to see dozens ofnative canoes hovering along the port-holes of his vessels, sellingfruit and curios to his men.
Marie reached home in the early evening, and found her old motherfrantic because of her absence and the excitement that had taken place.
During the next few weeks while Dewey was waiting for reinforcementsfrom home, many strange things occurred on shore. The Filipinoscaptured or killed nearly all of the smaller Spanish garrisonsdistributed throughout the islands. On May 26, they secretly cutdown the Spanish guards walking their beats along the western side ofthe little town of Cavite, and let in a horde of Tagalos well armedwith bolos, who crept up near a large stone cathedral, built in 1643,in which the Spaniards, as a military necessity after their defeat byDewey, were making their headquarters. These Filipinos made a mad rushthrough the back door of the building and captured all the Spaniardsbeing quartered therein. This feat also gave them possession of anotherlot of Mauser and Remington rifles and a goodly store of ammunition,for which they had been yearning.
Dewey had no men whom he could spare to send ashore; therefore, he hadleft these surrendered Spaniards to take care of themselves. Evidentlyhe did not anticipate an attack upon the garrison at Cavite, orhe might have landed enough marines from his battleships to haveprevented it.
When Marie heard about the capture of the Spanish garrison at Caviteby the Filipinos, she at once rowed over there to see what was goingto be done with the prisoners. This was the first time she had beenat Cavite since the day of her lover's tragic death. She found theFilipinos jubilant over their new fire-arms. But many of them hadnever before used a gun and they were very awkward with them, sothat accidents were constantly occurring. The privileges of targetpractice given to Marie by the Spaniards, in times past, now found anew reward. She organized the Filipinos into squads for this training,arranged suitable targets for them, supervised the loading and cleaningof their guns, and by voluntary assent became the leader in a wholelot of nefarious mischief in the neighborhood.
But what about her lover's dying request and the vow she registeredin her aching soul as she left the scene of his death? By remainingaway from the graves of our loved ones we may check memory andenthrone reason, thus more rapidly overcoming sorrow. By constantlyresorting to places of grief we keep that grief, whatever may havebeen its cause, fresh on the tablets of our memories. The fact thatMarie had not returned to Cavite, the scene of her sorrow, for abouttwo months, helped her to forget it and to flirt with fate among thevery troops who had caused it. Now that she had returned to Cavite,old visions began to haunt her. Shooting at wooden targets was notdesperate enough to appease her nature; she longed for bloodshed.
Between herself and a few Filipino leaders she concocted a schemethat would be hilarious, avenge the death of him whom she hadbriefly mourned, as well as the deaths of Rizal and thousands ofother Filipinos who had been shot or strangled by the Spaniards,and satisfy the longings of her innermost nature. It was this: apit twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deep was to be dug on thehigher ground a few miles southwest of Cavite. Each morning twentyof the captured Spaniards were to be marched out to this pit andmade to slide down a bamboo pole into it. The Filipino soldiers,armed with their newly-captured rifles, were then to stand aroundthe brink of this pit and use these half-starved Spaniards for livingtargets. Marie gloated over her new enterprise. What sport! How sheenjoyed it! The Filipino's marksmanship was poor and many of theirunfortunate prisoners were shot over a dozen times before they werestilled in death. This bloody practice was kept up until over twohundred Spaniards had been slain.
About this
time rumors of what was being done reached the earsof General Anderson. He ordered it stopped, and sent food ashore,under American escorts, for the Spanish prisoners. These prisoners,before being led to the slaughter, were housed by the Filipinosin an unfinished portion of the old convent at Cavite, and in somelarge stone buildings without floors and with only a few windows,heavily barricaded with iron bars, formerly used by the natives forstorage purposes for various cargoes of raw materials, preparatoryto exportation. These buildings were dark, damp and infested with amultiplicity of insectivora.
The Spaniards, imprisoned therein, were fed by the Filipinos on avery small ration of uncooked rice. This they had to pound into meal,and eat it out of their hands. Water, although plentiful, was deniedthem, except in small quantities. They had no beds, but slept onthe bare ground. Many of them were practically nude. They had staidby their guns on the Spanish fleet until their ships began to sink;then they had jumped overboard and swam ashore, taking off most oftheir clothes before making the attempt. The Filipinos had littleclothing to give them and no disposition to share what they did have.
These half-starved wretches, pale, lean and ghostly looking, manyof them sick with fever and other ailments, none of them with acent of money, were a sickening sight to the American troops whomGeneral Anderson sent ashore to investigate their circumstancesand conditions. Of course the healthier ones were marched out andkilled first. Some of them began to cry when the American officers,pushing the Filipino sentries aside, poked their vigorous manly facesthrough the openings of the massive doors to see who and what was onthe inside; but most of them propped themselves up on one elbow andheld out the other hand for something to eat. Others indicated bymotions that they wanted paper and pencils, so as to write lettershome, telling their loved ones in far-off Spain that they were stillalive, and asking for money.
As the Americans began to empty their haversacks and hand hard-tackand Boston baked beans to them, some of the prisoners seized them bythe fingers and kissed the backs of their hands in grateful homagefor their kindness. A few of the more ignorant ones, who had heard somuch about the cruelty of the American soldiers, and who, upon sightof our officers, believing the end was near, had sought a kneelingattitude and begun to pray, gradually sank back into a recliningposture and held out their hands for a morsel of food.
The Filipino guards sulked when they were displaced by the Americansentries, and some of them had to be forced from their posts offiendish duty at the point of the bayonet. They considered theseSpaniards as reprisals, constituting their own private property, withwhom they could do as they pleased without any justifiable interferenceon the part of anybody. Marie Sampalit slapped an American privatewho had been sent to displace a Filipino sentry whom she had juststationed at one of the prison doors. He promptly knocked her down withthe butt of his rifle. What she said in reply he could not understand.