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The Woman with a Stone Heart
A Romance of the Philippine War.
By
O. W. Coursey, (U. S. Vols.)
Author of
"History and Geography of the Philippine Islands."
"Who's Who In South Dakota."
"Biography of General Beadle."
"School Law Digest."
All of these books are published and for sale by
THE EDUCATOR SUPPLY COMPANY
Mitchell, South Dakota
Copyrighted 1914
By O. W. Coursey
THE WOMAN WITH A STONE HEART
INTRODUCTION
To those whose love of adventure would cause them to plunge head-long
into an abyss of vain glory, hoping at life's sunset to reap a
harvest contrary to the seed that were sown, let me suggest that
you pause first to read the story of "The Woman With a Stone Heart,"
Marie Sampalit, dare-devil of the Philippines.
Perhaps we might profitably meditate for a few moments on the musings
of Whittier:
"The tissue of the life to be
We weave in colors all our own,
And in the field of destiny
We'll reap as we have sown."
--The Author.
DEDICATION
To Her, who, as a bride of only eighteen months, stood broken-hearted
on the depot platform and bade me a tearful farewell as our train of
soldier boys started to war; who later, while I was Ten Thousand miles
away from home on soldier duty in the Philippine Islands, became a
Mother; and who, unfortunately, three months thereafter, was called
upon to lay our first-born, Oliver D. Coursey, into his snow-lined
baby tomb amid the bleak silence of a cold winter's night, with no
strong arm to bear her up in those awful hours of anguish and despair,
My Soldier Wife, Julia,
this book is most affectionately dedicated.
"Only a baby's grave,
Yet often we go and sit
By the little stone,
And thank God to own,
We are nearer heaven for it."
--O. W. Coursey.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Marie Sampalit 10
Region Around Manila Bay 29
Admiral Dewey 39
Aguinaldo 61
Marie, Her Mother, etc. 82
Filipinos at Breakfast 100
End of the Boat-Battle 113
The Rescue 126
Floating Down The Rapids 129
General Lawton and Staff 139
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapters: Page
I. Love Defeated 9
II. First Shot of A New War 25
III. Avenged Her Lover's Death 41
IV. The Interval 57
V. Filipino Uprising 69
VI. As A Spy 81
VII. Off For Baler 93
VIII. The Gilmore Incident 105
IX. The American Prisoners 113
X. Death of General Lawton 131
XI. North-bound 141
XII. Crossing the Sierra Madres 153
XIII. Compensation 167
CHAPTER I.
LOVE DEFEATED
Marie Sampalit and her fiancee, Rolando Dimiguez, were walking
arm-in-arm along the sandy beach of Manila bay, just opposite old
Fort Malate, talking of their wedding day which had been postponed
because of the Filipino insurrection which was in progress.
The tide was out. A long waved line of sea-shells and drift-wood
marked the place to which it had risen the last time before it began
to recede. They were unconsciously following this line of ocean
debris. Occasionally Marie would stop to pick up a spotted shell
which was more pretty than the rest. Finally, when they had gotten
as far north as the semi-circular drive-way which extends around
the southern and eastern sides of the walled-city, or Old Manila,
as it is called, and had begun to veer toward it, Marie looked back
and repeated a beautiful memory gem taught to her by a good friar
when she was a pupil in one of the parochial schools of Manila:
"E'en as the rise of the tide is told,
By drift-wood on the beach,
So can our pen mark on the page
How high our thoughts can reach."
They turned directly east until they reached the low stone-wall that
prevents Manila bay from overflowing the city during the periods
of high tides. Dimiguez helped Marie to step upon it; then they
strolled eastward past the large stake which marked the place where
the Spaniards had shot Dr. Jose Rizal, the brainiest patriot ever
produced by the Malay race.
When they came to the spot, Marie stopped and told Dimiguez how she
had watched the shooting when it took place, and how bravely Rizal
had met his fate.
"If it hadn't been for this outrage committed by the Spaniards,"
remarked Dimiguez, "this insurrection would not have lasted these two
years, and we would have been married before now; but our people are
determined to seek revenge for his death."
Then they started on, changed their course to the northward, entered
the walled-city by the south gate, walked past the old Spanish arsenal,
and then passed out of the walled-city by the north gate. Here they
crossed the Pasig river on the old "Bridge of Spain" (the large
stone bridge near the mouth of the river, built over 300 years ago)
and entered the Escolta, the main business street of Manila. After
making their way slowly up the Escolta they meandered along San Miguel
street until they finally turned and walked a short distance down a
side street to a typical native shack, built of bamboo and thatched
with Nipa palms, happily tucked away beneath the overhanging limbs
of a large mango tree in a spacious yard,--the home of the Sampalits.
Here Marie had been born just seventeen years before; in fact the next
day, April 7, would be her seventeenth birthday. When she was born,
her father instituted one of the accustomed Filipino dances which last
from three to five days and nights, and at its conclusion she had been
christened "Maria," subsequently changed by force of habit to "Marie."
Late that evening, while they were seated side-by-side on a bamboo
bench beside of her home, tapping the toes of their wooden-soled
slippers on the hard ground, and indulging in a wandering lovers'
conversation, Marie said to him (calling him affectionately by his
first name), "Rolando, when did you first decide to postpone our
wedding day?"
"Well, I'll tell you how it was," answered he, meditatingly. "The
thought of serving my country had been lingering on my mind all
last summer--in fact, ever since the insurrection first broke out in
the spring of 1896. You know I intended coming down to see you last
Christmas, but I couldn't get away. That night I walked the floor
all night in our home at Malolos, debating in my mind whether we
had better get married in March, as we had planned, or if it would
not be wiser and more manly for me to go to war, take chances on
getting back alive and postpone our wedding day until after the war
is over. Toward morning, I decided that it was my duty to become a
soldier; so I called my father and mother, got an early breakfast,
bade them goodby and started for Malabon, which was Aguinaldo's
headquarters, and enlisted. He was glad to see me. You know, he and
I attended school together for one year at Hongkong. Well, Aguinaldo
at once commissioned me a spy and assigned me to very important duty."
"My God!" interrupted Marie, "you are not on that duty now, are you,
Rolando?"
Dimiguez arose. "Marie," said he firmly, "I must be off."
"But won't you tell me where you are going and what task lies before
you?" pleaded Marie, as she threw both arms about his neck and began to
sob, "I'll never tell a living soul, so help me God, but I must know!"
"A spy never tells his plans to anyone, Marie," said Dimiguez
slowly. "He takes his orders from his chief, plays his part; and
if he gets caught, he refuses to speak and dies without a murmur,
like a man. Good night, Marie, I must be off; duty lies before me."
Marie cried herself to sleep.
The next morning she started down town, as usual, for the market place,
with her bamboo basket filled with bananas, sitting on her head,
and a cigarette in her mouth. She had only gone a block when she met
a neighbor girl, one of her chums of equal years to her own, who was
a chamber-maid in the German consul's home on San Miguel Street.
Her friend looked excited. "Have you heard the awful news, Marie?" said
she.
"No!" exclaimed Marie, "What is it?"
"Why, Dimiguez was caught last night by Spanish guards inside the
yard of the governor-general's summer palace up on the Malacanan,
just as he was slipping out of the palace itself. How he got in there,
nobody knows."
Marie dropped her basket. "Heavens!" gasped she, "Did he do anything
wrong?"
"They found in his pocket diagrams of the interior of the palace,
showing the entries to it, the room where the governor-general sleeps,
and many other things; also your picture. See here! the morning paper
gives a full account of it."
Marie glanced at the head lines and then started on a vigorous run for
the building in which the Spanish military court was sitting. Rushing
in, past an armed guard, she began to plead for her lover's life. But
he had already been tried, convicted and sentenced to death by
strangulation in the old chute at Cavite. Dimiguez never moved a
muscle when he saw Marie. Armed guards forced her abruptly out of
the building and ordered her to leave.
Inside of two hours, on the same day, April 7, the anniversary of
Marie's birth, he was taken to the little town of Cavite, seven miles
southwest of Manila, and was there placed in the lower end of a long
chute built out into Manila Bay. This chute was just wide enough for
a man to enter. Its sides, top and bottom were all built of heavy
planks. The side planks lacked a few inches of connecting with the
top, although of course the side posts ran clear up and the top was
firmly bolted to them. The entrance to it was well elevated near the
docks. The lower end protruded into the bay, so that it was visible
about eighteen inches above the water during the period of low tide,
and submerged several feet during high tide.
Tides come in slowly at Cavite, each succeeding wave rising but a
trifle higher than the others, until the usual height is reached. Thus,
a prisoner placed in this chute, forced to the lower end and then
fastened securely during low tide, can look out over the side planks
at the hideous spectators, watch the tide as it begins to rise and
see slow death approaching. It was in this chute that Marie's lover
met his death.
Marie saw the launch that carried him away as it left Manila. She
rushed down to the Pasig river, loosened her little boat from the
tree to which it was tied, jumped in, seized the oars and started in
pursuit. The launch on which he was being carried had for its power
a gasoline engine, and, of course, it soon left her far behind. When
she first started, the swells caused by the launch rocked her little
canoe quite roughly and impeded her progress. As she approached the
mouth of the river, passed the monument of Magellan and came between
the walled-city on the southern bank and the docks on the northern
bank, a crowd of excited natives thronged the shore, and many of them
recognized her. She heard some one cry out, "Vive Marie!" With might
and main she strove forward.
The launch made its seven-mile run to Cavite; the victim was placed
in the chute; the tide had risen to the danger line; her lover,
with his head thrown back, had just begun to gurgle the salt water,
when Marie, in frantic agony, almost exhausted, rowed around the
lower end of the chute and came near enough to the dying hero to
be recognized by him. Straining ever muscle to keep his head above
the water a second longer, he cried out in chocking tones that were
interrupted by the merciless sea which was rapidly filling his mouth,
"Goodby, Marie, God bless you. Avenge my death!"
Hush! At this moment another tidal wave engulfed the apex of the
chute. Not a sound could be heard save the slight flapping of the
waves against the pier, and the dismal chant of three priests, who
stood on the shore near by, and who had not been permitted to attend
the young spy before his death. Marie trembled; she dropped the oars;
her eyes fell; for a moment it seemed that her young heart stood still:
then her face flushed; the tears stopped flowing; anguish gave vent
to determined revenge; pent-up sorrows yielded to out-spoken threats;
and in tones sufficiently audible to be heard ashore, she cried,
"I'll do it."
The Spaniard knows no pity. If Marie were to have stepped ashore
immediately after her lover's strangulation, she might have come
to grief. It is strange that she escaped punishment for having
followed. She, therefore, rowed directly east and landed on the beach
of the bay, about four miles south of Manila, just west of the little
city of Paranaque.
From sheer exhaustion, she needed food; therefore, she walked northward
along the shore until she found a Mango tree heavily laden with
fruit. After eating a few luscious mangoes, she crept into a clump
of bamboo and had a good cry: tears so ease a woman's soul.
From her position on the beach she could readily see the Spaniards
as they took her dead lover from the chute when the tide had lowered
toward evening. She saw them even strike his corpse, and she bit her
finger nails as she watched them place him in a rough wooden box and
haul him up through the streets of the village on an old two-wheeled
cart drawn by a caribou.
With the approach of sunset, things grew strangely quiet. The spring
zephyr that had blown modestly during the day died away. There was no
longer even a dimple in the blue surface of Manila Bay. Not a leaf was
astir. It seemed to Marie that the only sound she could hear was the
the throbbing of her own heart. To her the whole world seemed like an
open sepulcher. Looking down she discovered that she was unconsciously
sitting on a flowery terrace and that all about her was life. She
pulled one of those exquisite white flowers with wide pink veins,
peculiar alone to the Philippines, and pressed it to her lips.
The sun was just setting beyond Corregidor. The island's long shadows
seemed to extend completely across the bay to her feet. As the solar
fires burned themselves out, the orange tint which they left behind
against the reddened sky reminded Marie of the night before, when
she and her lover had strolled along the shore of the bay about three
miles farther north; and as the sun slowly nodded its evening farewell
and buried its face in the pillow of night, she remembered how he, on
the previous night, had called to her attention the lingering glow of
its fading beams. Before her lay the Spanish fleet, it, too, casting
shadows that first grew longer and longer and then dimmer and dimmer
until they in turn had died away in the spectral phenomenon of night.
Marie's thoughts turned toward home. What about her mother? She walked
back to her little boat, pushed it out into the bay, and, stepping
into it, sat down, took hold of the oars and started northward near
the beach. Just opposite Fort Malate, she swung westward, and, passing
outside of the break-water a mile from shore, she entered the Pasig
river and hurried homeward. When she arrived, about nine o'clock,
she found her mother on the verge of prostration; for that very day,
strange to say, Marie's father, who was a colonel in the Filipino
infantry, had been killed at San Francisco del Monte, six miles
north-east of Manila, in a battle with Spanish troops.
"Don't cry, mother," expostulated Marie, "from now on I intend to
kill every foe of ours in these islands!"