Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)
[Illustration: Grouped about a prostrate form in the pale blue uniform
of a Filipino Captain]
RAY'S DAUGHTER
A Story of Manila
By
GENERAL CHARLES KING, U.S.V.
Author of "Ray's Recruit," "Marion's Faith,"
"The Colonel's Daughter," etc.
Philadelphia and London
J. B. Lippincott Company
1901
Copyright, 1900
by
J. B. Lippincott Company
_Electrotyped and Printed by
J. B. Lippincott Company,
Philadelphia, U.S.A._
RAY'S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER I.
The long June day was drawing to its close. Hot and strong the slanting
sunbeams beat upon the grimy roofs of the train and threw distorted
shadows over the sand and sage-brush that stretched to the far horizon.
Dense and choking, from beneath the whirring wheels the dust-clouds rose
in tawny billows that enveloped the rearmost coaches and, mingling with
the black smoke of the "double-header" engines, rolled away in the
dreary wake. East and west, north and south, far as the eye could reach,
hemmed by low, dun-colored ridges or sharply outlined crests of remote
mountain range, in lifeless desolation the landscape lay outspread to
the view. Southward, streaked with white fringe of alkali, the flat
monotone of sand and ashes blended with the flatter, flawless surface
of a wide-spreading, ash-colored inland lake, its shores dotted at
intervals with the bleaching bones of cattle and ridged with ancient
wagon-tracks unwashed by not so much as a single drop from the cloudless
heavens since their first impress on the sinking soil. Here and there
along the right of way--a right no human being would care to dispute
were the way ten times its width--some drowsing lizards, sprawling in
the sunshine along the ties, roused at the sound and tremor of the
coming train to squirm off into the sage-brush, but no sign of animation
had been seen since the crossing of the big divide near Promontory. The
long, winding train, made up of mail-, express-, baggage-, emigrant-,
and smoking-cars, "tourists' coaches," and huge sleepers at the rear,
with a "diner" midway in the chain, was packed with gasping humanity
westward bound for the far Pacific--the long, long, tortuous climb to
the snow-capped Sierras ahead, the parched and baking valley of the
Great Salt Lake long, dreary miles behind. It was early June of the year
'98, and the war with Spain was on.
There had been some delay at Ogden. The trains from the East over the
Union Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande came in crowded, and the
resources of the Southern Pacific were suddenly taxed beyond the
expectation of its officials. Troops had been whirling westward
throughout the week, absorbing much of the rolling stock, and the empty
cars were being rushed east again from Oakland pier, but the nearest
were still some hundreds of miles from this point of transfer when a
carload of recruits was dumped upon the broad platform, and the
superintendent scratched his head, and screwed up the corner of his
mouth, and asked an assistant how in a hotter place than even Salt Lake
Valley the road could expect him to forward troops without delay "when
the road took away the last car in the yard getting those Iowa boys
out."
"There ain't nuthin' left 'cept that old tourist that's been rustin' and
kiln-dryin' up 'longside the shops since last winter," said the junior
helplessly. "Shall we have her out?"
"Guess you'll have to," was the answer. "It's that or nothin';" and the
boss turned on his heel and slammed the office door behind him. "Ten to
one," said he, "there'll be a kick comin' when the boys see what they've
got to ride in, an' I'll let Jim take the kick."
The kick had come as predicted, but availed nothing. A score of lusty
young patriots were the performers, but, being destined for service in
the regulars, they had neither Senator nor State official to "wire" to
in wrathful protest, as was usual on such occasions. The superintendent
would have thought twice before ever suggesting that car as a component
part of the train bearing the volunteers from Nebraska, Colorado, or
Iowa so recently shipped over the road. "They could have made it hot for
the management," said he. But these fellows, these waifs, were from no
State or place in particular. They hadn't even an officer with them, but
were hurrying on to their destination under command of a veteran gunner,
"lanced" for the purpose at the recruiting station. He had done his best
for his men. Ruefully they looked through the dust-covered interior and
inspected the muddy trucks and brake-gear. "She wheezes like she had
bronchitis," said the corporal, "and the inside's a cross between a
hen-coop and coal-bin. You ain't going to run that old rookery for a
car, are you?"
"Best we've got," was the curt reply. Yet the yardman shook his head as
he heard the squeal of the rusty journals, and ordered his men to pack
in fresh waste and "touch 'em up somehow." Any man who had spent a week
about a railway could have prophesied "hot boxes" before that coach had
run much more than its own length, but it wouldn't do for an employee to
say so. The corporal looked appealingly at his fellow-passengers of the
Rio Grande train. There were dozens of them stretching their legs and
strolling about the platform, after getting their hand-luggage
transferred and seats secured, but there was no one in position or
authority to interpose. Some seemed to feel no interest.
"Get your rations and plunder aboard," he ordered, turning suddenly to
his party, and, loading up with blankets, overcoats, haversacks, and
canteens, the recruits speedily took possession of their new quarters,
forced open the jammed windows to let out the imprisoned and overheated
air, piled their boxes of hard bread and stacks of tinned meat at the
ends and their scant soldier goods and chattels in the rude sections,
then tumbled out again upon the platform to enjoy, while yet there was
time, the freedom of the outer air, despite the torrid heat of the
mid-day sunshine.
In knots of three or four they sauntered about, their hands deep in
their empty pockets, their boyish eyes curiously studying the signs and
posters, or wistfully peering through the screened doors at the
temptations of the bar and lunch counter or the shaded windows of the
dining-room, where luckier fellow-passengers were taking their fill of
the good cheer afforded. Two of the number, dressed like the rest in
blue flannel shirts, with trousers of lighter hue and heavier make,
fanning their heated faces with their drab, broad-brimmed campaign hats,
swung off the rear end of the objectionable car, and, with a quick
glance about them, started briskly down the track to where the "diner"
and certain sleepers of the Southern Pacific were being shunted about.
"Come back here, you fellers!" shouted the corporal, catching sight of
the pair. "You don't know how soon this here train may start. Come back,
I say," he added emphatically, as the two, looking first into each
other's eyes, seemed to hesitate. Then, with sullen, down-cast face the
nearer turned and slowly obeyed. The other, a bright, merry youngster,
whose white teeth gleamed as he laughed his reply, still stood in his
tracks.
"We're only going to the dining-car, corporal," he shouted. "That's
going with us, so we can't be left."
"You've got no business in the dining-car, Mellen; that's not for your
sort, or mine, for that matter," was the corporal's ultimatum. And with
a grin still expanding his broad mouth, the recruit addressed as Mellen
came reluctantly sauntering in the trail of his comrade, who had
submitted in silence and yet not without a shrug of protest. It was to
the latter the corporal spoke when the two had rejoined their
associates.
"You've got sense enough to know you're not wanted at that diner,
Murray, whether Mellen has or not. That's no place for empty pockets.
What took you there?"
"Wanted a drink, and you said 'keep away from the bar-room,'" answered
Murray briefly, his gray eyes glancing about from man to man in the
group, resting for just a second on the form and features of one who
stood a little apart, a youth of twenty-one years probably. "It was
Foster's treat," he added, and that remark transferred the attention of
the party at the instant to the youngster on the outskirts.
He had been leaning with folded arms against a lamp-post, looking
somewhat wearily up the long platform to where in pairs or little groups
the passengers were strolling, men and women both, seeking relief from
the constraint and stiffness of the long ride by rail. He had an
interesting--even a handsome--face, and his figure was well knit, well
proportioned. His eyes were a dark, soft brown, with very long, curving
lashes, his nose straight, his mouth finely curved, soft and sensitive.
His throat was full, round, and at the base very white and fair, as the
unfastened and flapping shirt-collar now enabled one to see. His hands,
too, were soft and white, showing that at least one of the twenty came
not from the ranks of the toilers. His shoes were of finer make than
those of his comrades, and the handkerchief so loosely knotted at the
opening of the coarse blue shirt was of handsome and costly silk. He
had been paying scant attention to his surroundings, and was absorbed,
evidently, in his watch on the tourists up the platform when recalled
to himself by the consciousness that all eyes were upon him.
"What's this about your treatin', Foster?" asked the corporal.
For a week he had felt sure the boy had money, and not a little. Nothing
would have persuaded him to borrow a cent of Foster or anybody else, but
others, and plenty of them, had no such scruples.
The young recruit turned slowly. He seemed reluctant to quit his
scrutiny of his fellow-passengers. The abrupt tone and manner of the
accustomed regular, too, jarred upon him. It might be the corporal's
prerogative so to address his charges, but this one didn't like it, and
meant to show that he didn't. His money at least was his own, and he
could do with it as he liked. The answer did not come until the question
had been asked twice. Then in words as brief and manner as blunt he
said,--
"Why shouldn't I?"
Corporal Connelly stood a second or two without venturing a word,
looking steadfastly at the young soldier, whose attitude was unchanged
and whose eyes were again fixed on the distant group, as though in weary
disdain of those about him. Then Connelly took half a dozen quick,
springy steps that landed him close to the unmoved recruit.
"You've two things to learn among two thousand, Foster," said he in low,
firm voice. "One is to keep your money, and the other, your temper. I
spoke for your good principally, but if you've been ladling out your
money to be spent in liquor, I say stop it. There's to be no whiskey in
that car."
"Nobody wants it less than I do," said Foster wearily. "Why didn't you
keep it out of the others?"
"Because I never knew till it was gone. How much money did you give
Murray--and why?" and Connelly's eyes were looking straight into those
of Foster as he spoke, compelling respect for sturdy manhood.
"A dollar, I believe," was the languid answer, "and because he asked
it." And again the lad's gaze wandered off along the platform.
The switch engine was busily at work making up the train, and brakemen
were signalling up and down the line. The dining-car, followed by some
ponderous sleepers, came gliding slowly along the rails and brought up
with a bump and jar against the buffers of the old tourists' ark
assigned the recruits. Somewhere up at the thronged station a bell began
to jangle, followed by a shout of "All aboard!"
"Tumble in, you men," ordered Connelly, and at the moment there came a
general movement of the crowd in their direction. The passengers of the
sleepers were hurrying to their assigned places, some with flushed faces
and expostulation. They thought their car should have come to them.
"It's because our train is so very long," explained the brakeman to some
ladies whom he was assisting up the steps. "We've twice as many cars as
usual. Yours is the next car, ma'am; the one behind the diner."
The recruit, Foster, had started, but slowly, when in obedience to the
corporal's order his fellows began to move. He was still looking, half
in search, half in expectation, towards the main entrance of the station
building. But the instant he became aware of the movement in his
direction on the part of the passengers he pushed ahead past several of
the party; he even half shoved aside one of their number who had just
grasped the hand-rail of the car, then sprang lightly past him and
disappeared within the door-way. There, half hidden by the gloom of the
interior, he stood well back from the grimy windows, yet peering
intently through at the swiftly passing crowd.
Suddenly he stooped, recoiled, and seated himself in the opposite
section while his comrades came filing rapidly in, and at the moment a
tall young officer in dark uniform, a man perhaps of twenty-five, with a
singularly handsome face and form, strode past the window, scrupulously
acknowledged Connelly's salute, and then, glancing about, saw the heads
and shoulders of a dozen soldiers at the windows.
"Why, what detachment is this, corporal?" he asked. "We brought no
troops on our train."
"Recruits --th Cavalry, sir," was the ready answer. "We came by way of
Denver."
"Ah, yes; that explains it. Who's in command?" And the tall officer
looked about him as though in search of kindred rank.
"We have no officer with us, sir," said Connelly diplomatically.
"I'm--in charge."
"You'll have to hurry, sir," spoke the brakeman at the moment. "Jump on
the diner, if you like, and go through."
The officer took the hint and sprang to the steps. There he turned and
faced the platform again just as the train began to move.
A little group, two ladies and a man of middle age, stood directly
opposite him, closely scanning the train, and all on a sudden their
faces beamed, their glances were directed, their hands waved towards
him.
"Good-by! Good-by! Take good care of yourself! Wire from Sacramento!"
were their cries, addressed apparently to his head, and turning quickly,
he found himself confronting a young girl standing smiling on the
platform of the dining-car, her tiny feet about on a level with his
knees; yet he had hardly to cast an upward glance, for her beaming,
beautiful face was but a trifle higher than his own. In all his life he
had never seen one so pretty.
Realizing that he stood between this fair traveller and the friends who
were there to wish her god-speed; recognizing, too, with the swift
intuition of his class, the possibility of establishing relations on his
own account, the young soldier snatched off his new forage-cap, briefly
said, "I beg your pardon; take my place," and, swinging outward,
transferred himself to the rear of the recruit car, thereby causing the
corporal to recoil upon a grinning squad of embryo troopers who were
shouting jocular farewell to the natives, and getting much in the way of
train-hands who were busy straightening out the bell-cord.
Something seemed amiss with that portion of it which made part of the
equipment of the old tourists' car. It was either wedged in the narrow
orifice above the door or caught among the rings of the pendants from
above, for it resisted every jerk, whereat the brakeman set his teeth
and said improper things. It would have grieved the management to hear
this faithful employe's denunciation of that particular item of their
rolling-stock.
"Get out of the way here, boys, and let's see what's the matter with
this damned bell-cord," he continued, elbowing his way through the swarm
about the door. Once fairly within, he threw a quick glance along the
aisle. The left sections of the car were deserted. Out of almost every
window on the right side poked a head and pair of blue flannel
shoulders.
Only one man of the party seemed to have no further interest in what was
going on outside. With one hand still grasping the edge of the upright
partition between two sections near the forward end, and the other just
letting go, apparently, of the bell-cord, the tall, slender, well-built
young soldier, with dark-brown eyes and softly curling lashes, was
lowering himself into the aisle. The brakeman proceeded to rebuke him on
the spot.
"Look here, young feller, you'll have to keep your hands off that
bell-cord. Here I've been cussin' things for keeps, thinking it was
knotted or caught. It was just you had hold of it. Don't you know
better'n that? Ain't you ever travelled before?"
The man addressed was stowing something away inside the breast of his
shirt. He did it with almost ostentatious deliberation, quietly eying
the brakeman before replying. Then, slowly readjusting the knot of a
fine black-silk necktie, so that its broad, flapping ends spread over
the coarser material of the garment, he slowly looked the justly
exasperated brakeman over from head to foot and as slowly and placidly
answered:
"Not more than about half around the world. As for your bell-cord, it
was knotted; it caught in that ring. I saw that someone was tugging and
trying to get it loose, so I swung up there and straightened it. Just
what you'd have done under the circumstances, I fancy."
The brakeman turned redder under the ruddy brown of his sun-tanned skin.
This was no raw "rookie" after all. In his own vernacular, as afterwards
expressed to the conductor, "I seen I was up ag'in' the real t'ing dis
time," but it was hard to admit it at the moment. Vexation had to have a
vent. The bell-cord no longer served. The supposed meddler had proved a
help. Something or somebody had to be the victim of the honest
brakeman's spleen, so, somewhat unluckily, as events determined, he took
it out on the company and that decrepit car, now buzzing along with much
complaint of axle and of bearing.
"Damn this old shake-down, anyhow!" said he. "The company ought to know
'nough not to have such things lyin' round loose. Some night it'll fall
to pieces and kill folks." And with this implied apology for his
aspersions of Recruit Foster, the brakeman bustled away.
But what he said was heard by more than one, and remembered when perhaps
he would have wished it forgotten. The delay at Ogden was supplemented
by a long halt before the setting of that blazing sun, necessitated by
the firing of the waste in the boxes of those long-neglected trucks. Far
back as the rearmost sleeper the sickening smell of burning, oil-steeped
packing drove feminine occupants to their satchels in search of
scent-bottles, and the men to such comfort as could be found in flasks
of bulkier make.
In the heart of the desert, with dust and desolation spreading far on
every hand, the long train had stopped to douse those foul-smelling
fires, and, while train-hands pried off the red-hot caps and dumped
buckets of water into the blazing cavities, changing malodorous smoke to
dense clouds of equally unsavory steam, and the recruits in the
afflicted car found consolation in "joshing" the hard-sweating,
hard-swearing workers, the young officer who had boarded the second
sleeper at Ogden, together with half a dozen bipeds in dusters or
frazzled shirt-sleeves, had become involved in a complication on the
shadier side of the train.
Somewhere into the sage-brush a jack-rabbit had darted and was now in
hiding. With a dozen eager heads poked from the northward windows and
stretching arms and index fingers guiding them in their inglorious hunt,
the lieutenant and his few associates were stalking the first
four-footed object sighted from the train since the crossing of the bald
divide.
Within the heated cars, with flushed faces and plying palm-leaf fans, a
few of the women passengers were languidly gazing from the windows. At
the centre window of the second sleeper, without a palm-leaf and looking
serene and unperturbed, sat the young girl whose lovely face had so
excited Mr. Stuyvesant's deep admiration. Thrice since leaving Ogden, on
one pretext or other, had he passed her section and stolen such a look
as could be given without obvious staring. Immediately in rear of the
seat she occupied was an austere maiden of middle age, one of the
passengers who had come on by the Union Pacific from Omaha. Directly
opposite sat two men whom Stuyvesant had held in but scant esteem up to
the time they left the valley of Salt Lake. Now, because their sections
stood over against hers, his manner relaxed with his mood. Circumstances
had brought the elderly maid and himself to the same table on two
occasions in the dining-car, but he had hitherto felt no desire to press
the acquaintance.
This afternoon he minded him of a new book he had in his bag, for
literature, he judged, might be her hobby, and had engaged her in
conversation, of which his share was meant to impress the tiny,
translucent ear that nestled in the dark-brown coils and waves of the
pretty head in front of him.
When, however, it became patent that his companion desired to form her
own impressions of the pages uninfluenced by his well-delivered
comments, Mr. Stuyvesant had bethought him of the semi-somnolent
occupants of the opposite section, and some cabalistic signs he ventured
with a little silver cup summoned them in pleased surprise to the
water-cooler at the rear end, where he regaled them with a good story
and the best of V. O. P. Scotch, and accepted their lavish bid to sit
with them awhile.
From this coign of vantage he had studied her sweet, serious, oval face
as she sat placidly reading a little volume in her lap, only once in a
while raising a pair of very dark, very beautiful, very heavily browed
and lashed brown eyes for brief survey of the forbidding landscape;
then, with never an instant's peep at him, dropping their gaze again
upon the book.
Not once in the long, hot afternoon had she vouchsafed him the minimum
of a show of interest, curiosity, or even consciousness of his presence.
Then the train made its second stop on account of the fires, and Bre'r
Rabbit his luckless break into the long monotony of the declining day.
Tentative spikes, clods, and empty flasks having failed to find him, the
beaters had essayed a skirmish line, and with instant result. Like a
meteoric puff of gray and white, to a chorus of yells and the
accompaniment of a volley of missiles, Jack had shot into space from
behind his shelter and darted zigzagging through the brush. A whizzing
spike, a chance shot that nearly grazed his nose, so dazzled his
brainlet that the terrified creature doubled on his trail and came
bounding back towards the train.
Close to the track-side ran a narrow ditch. In this ditch at the instant
crouched the tall lieutenant. Into this ditch leaped Bunny, and the next
second had whizzed past the stooping form and bored straight into a
little wooden drain. There some unseen, unlooked-for object blocked him.
Desperately the hind-legs kicked and tore in the effort to force the
passage, and with a shout of triumph the tall soldier swooped upon the
prize, seized the struggling legs, swung the wretched creature aloft,
and for the first time in six mortal hours met full in his own the gaze
of the deep, beautiful brown eyes he had so striven to attract, and they
were half pleading, half commanding for Bunny. The next instant,
uninjured, but leaping madly for life, Bre'r Rabbit was streaking
eastward out of harm's way, a liberated victim whose first huge leap
owed much of its length to the impetus of Stuyvesant's long, lean,
sinewy arm.
This time when he looked up and raised his cap, and stood there with his
blond hair blowing down over his broad white forehead, although the soft
curves of the ripe red lips at the window above him changed not, there
was something in the dark-brown eyes that seemed to say "Thank you!"
Yet when he would have met those eyes again that evening, when "Last
call for dinner in the dining-car" was sounding through the train, he
could not. Neither were they among those that peered from between parted
curtains in the dim light of the sleeper, many in fright, all in
anxiety, when somewhere in the dead of the summer night, long after all
occupants of the rearmost cars were wrapped in slumber, the long train
bumped to sudden jarring standstill, and up ahead there arose sound of
rush, of excitement and alarm.