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 she
sat there shivering with fright, day began to dawn. Presently she heard
the Spanish batteries on Point Cavite fire a heavy shot--then a second
one; and a few minutes later she saw flames of fire and smoke belching
forth from the starboard sides of Dewey's entire squadron. Then the
Spanish fleet, lying off of Point Cavite, commenced a united and
simultaneous action.
Shells rent the air; the men on both fleets cheered as they beheld
the effect on the enemy of a well-directed shot; smoke-begrimed
gunners, with the perspiration washing light-colored furrows down
their manly cheeks, stood at their guns and worked like demons as they
swabbed their cannon and crowded into them shot after shot. Hissing
projectiles that missed the opposing ships and plunged into the bay,
were throwing volumes of splashing foam into the air. Dewey's vessels
were moving in a figure eight and using alternately the several guns
on their port and on their starboard sides, while the Spanish ships
moved 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 Spanish
officer who had come to her side.
Just then, there was a lull in the battle. Dewey's ships ceased firing
and withdrew to the middle of the bay. No apparent damage had been
sustained by the vessels of either command.
"The old fellow is going to quit," said Marie to the Spanish officer
who stood erect with his field glasses carefully trained on Dewey's
squadron.
"They're coming this way, Marie," said the officer.
"My God! where will we go, if they come past the island and open
fire on us again?" shouted Marie. "We haven't a mounted gun left to
shoot with."
The officer remained quiet. Presently he said, "They've stopped and
are dividing up their ammunition. Evidently they are going to resume
the fight."
He guessed it right. In thirty minutes Dewey's vessels were heading
straight for the Spanish fleet. His first shot set on fire the
beautiful Spanish flag-ship, the "Reina Christina." Then her magazine
blew up. She was hastily scuttled on the beach near Cavite and deserted
amid great disorder by that portion of her crew which was able to
leave. The dead and the dying were left to their fate. Magazines in
several other Spanish ships soon blew up. In a few minutes most of them
were on fire. Dewey's gunners were doing deadly execution. Hundreds
of Spanish soldiers could be seen jumping from their burning vessels
into the ocean.
"Now what is he going to do?" said Marie, with some excitement, as
she saw one of Dewey's ships, the "Concord," disengage herself from
the rest of the fleet and head straight for a large Spanish gun-boat
that was lying off to herself and whose sole business it seemed was
to keep up a deadly fire on Dewey's flagship, the "Olympia." The
Concord literally disembowled her.
"The heartless wretches!" exclaimed Marie, as she watched another
American ship, the "Petrel," leave the line of battle and make a rapid
run right past the Spanish fleet for the village of Cavite. "I wonder
what 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 flying
at her mast head this signal, "Have destroyed eight vessels."
Dewey's ships moved over toward the city of Manila, took their
positions in line and remained quiet.
"What time is it?" asked Marie of the Spanish officer who stood
near her.
"Twelve-thirty," answered he, as he looked at his watch.
Marie whiled away the afternoon watching the Spaniards on Corregidor
island burying their dead comrades. She wanted to go home, but she
feared to go past Dewey's fleet.
That evening things became solemnly quiet; and the blazing sun, as its
face reddened into nightly slumber beyond the watery horizon of the
Pacific, bade farewell to a finished deed, which, in the history of
naval warfare, has never been surpassed; while the pale-faced moon,
moving slowly up her appointed path, looked calmly down with her
quartered cheek in silent benediction on the blazing hulls of the
Spanish ships as they slowly cremated their dead and dying.
The next day the Spanish Commandante on Corregidor discovered that
Dewey had blockaded the port of Manila, so he restrained Marie from
starting home for nearly a week.
Finally, she got permission to go. As she passed Dewey's fleet she
was surprised to find everything so peaceful and to see dozens of
native canoes hovering along the port-holes of his vessels, selling
fruit and curios to his men.
Marie reached home in the early evening, and found her old mother
frantic because of her absence and the excitement that had taken place.
During the next few weeks while Dewey was waiting for reinforcements
from home, many strange things occurred on shore. The Filipinos
captured or killed nearly all of the smaller Spanish garrisons
distributed throughout the islands. On May 26, they secretly cut
down the Spanish guards walking their beats along the western side of
the little town of Cavite, and let in a horde of Tagalos well armed
with bolos, who crept up near a large stone cathedral, built in 1643,
in which the Spaniards, as a military necessity after their defeat by
Dewey, were making their headquarters. These Filipinos made a mad rush
through the back door of the building and captured all the Spaniards
being quartered therein. This feat also gave them possession of another
lot 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 had
left these surrendered Spaniards to take care of themselves. Evidently
he did not anticipate an attack upon the garrison at Cavite, or
he might have landed enough marines from his battleships to have
prevented it.
When Marie heard about the capture of the Spanish garrison at Cavite
by the Filipinos, she at once rowed over there to see what was going
to be done with the prisoners. This was the first time she had been
at Cavite since the day of her lover's tragic death. She found the
Filipinos jubilant over their new fire-arms. But many of them had
never before used a gun and they were very awkward with them, so
that accidents were constantly occurring. The privileges of target
practice given to Marie by the Spaniards, in times past, now found a
new reward. She organized the Filipinos into squads for this training,
arranged suitable targets for them, supervised the loading and cleaning
of their guns, and by voluntary assent became the leader in a whole
lot of nefarious mischief in the neighborhood.
But what about her lover's dying request and the vow she registered
in her aching soul as she left the scene of his death? By remaining
away from the graves of our loved ones we may check memory and
enthrone reason, thus more rapidly overcoming sorrow. By constantly
resorting to places of grief we keep that grief, whatever may have
been its cause, fresh on the tablets of our memories. The fact that
Marie had not returned to Cavite, the scene of her sorrow, for about
two months, helped her to forget it and to flirt with fate among the
very troops who had caused it. Now that she had returned to Cavite,
old visions began to haunt her. Shooting at wooden targets was not
desperate enough to appease her nature; she longed for bloodshed.
Between herself and a few Filipino leaders she concocted a scheme
that would be hilarious, avenge the death of him whom she had
briefly mourned, as well as the deaths of Rizal and thousands of
other Filipinos who had been shot or strangled by the Spaniards,
and satisfy the longings of her innermost nature. It was this: a
pit twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deep was to be dug on the
higher ground a few miles southwest of Cavite. Each morning twenty
of the captured Spaniards were to be marched out to this pit and
made to slide down a bamboo pole into it. The Filipino soldiers,
armed with their newly-captured rifles, were then to stand around
the brink of this pit and use these half-starved Spaniards for living
targets. Marie gloated over her new enterprise. What sport! How she
enjoyed it! The Filipino's marksmanship was poor and many of their
unfortunate prisoners were shot over a dozen times before they were
stilled in death. This bloody practice was kept up until over two
hundred Spaniards had been slain.
About this time rumors of what was being done reached the ears
of 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 Filipinos
in an unfinished portion of the old convent at Cavite, and in some
large stone buildings without floors and with only a few windows,
heavily barricaded with iron bars, formerly used by the natives for
storage purposes for various cargoes of raw materials, preparatory
to exportation. These buildings were dark, damp and infested with a
multiplicity of insectivora.
The Spaniards, imprisoned therein, were fed by the Filipinos on a
very small ration of uncooked rice. This they had to pound into meal,
and eat it out of their hands. Water, although plentiful, was denied
them, except in small quantities. They had no beds, but slept on
the bare ground. Many of them were practically nude. They had staid
by their guns on the Spanish fleet until their ships began to sink;
then they had jumped overboard and swam ashore, taking off most of
their clothes before making the attempt. The Filipinos had little
clothing to give them and no disposition to share what they did have.
These half-starved wretches, pale, lean and ghostly looking, many
of them sick with fever and other ailments, none of them with a
cent of money, were a sickening sight to the American troops whom
General Anderson sent ashore to investigate their circumstances
and conditions. Of course the healthier ones were marched out and
killed first. Some of them began to cry when the American officers,
pushing the Filipino sentries aside, poked their vigorous manly faces
through the openings of the massive doors to see who and what was on
the inside; but most of them propped themselves up on one elbow and
held out the other hand for something to eat. Others indicated by
motions that they wanted paper and pencils, so as to write letters
home, telling their loved ones in far-off Spain that they were still
alive, and asking for money.
As the Americans began to empty their haversacks and hand hard-tack
and Boston baked beans to them, some of the prisoners seized them by
the fingers and kissed the backs of their hands in grateful homage
for their kindness. A few of the more ignorant ones, who had heard so
much about the cruelty of the American soldiers, and who, upon sight
of our officers, believing the end was near, had sought a kneeling
attitude and begun to pray, gradually sank back into a reclining
posture and held out their hands for a morsel of food.
The Filipino guards sulked when they were displaced by the American
sentries, and some of them had to be forced from their posts of
fiendish duty at the point of the bayonet. They considered these
Spaniards as reprisals, constituting their own private property, with
whom they could do as they pleased without any justifiable interference
on the part of anybody. Marie Sampalit slapped an American private
who had been sent to displace a Filipino sentry whom she had just
stationed at one of the prison doors. He promptly knocked her down with
the butt of his rifle. What she said in reply he could not understand.