We recognized the fighting men easily. There were dozens of them,
squatted in a circle, armed with _bolos_, _borangs_, and _spears_. But
in the center stood a strange figure in a long black robe, his parted
hair hanging down his back. Around him stood six men, fierce savages,
with shaved heads, and half naked bodies.
"_Juramentado!_" I whispered. "That's a Mohammedan priest in the center
and he is making _Juramentado_ of the six--look!"
I heard both Davis and Moriarty slip the bolts of their Krags. To say
_Juramentado_ to any soldier was like crying wolf to a shepherd and his
flock.
We lay still, seeing the mystic savage rite no white man ever saw
before. We could hear the words of the priest which, spoken in a mixed
Moro-Spanish, we easily interpreted. The six we soon learned were Moros
from Mindanao and had sailed over to sacrifice themselves to our army.
It was indeed a weird rite he went through, and strange words he
used:--how, if each killed his Christian before dying, it meant first
heaven and an _houri_; and if two Christians a second heaven and two
_houri_, up to the seventh heaven and a harem if they died within our
lines with seven of our dead each to his credit.
"And now behead them," he ordered, pointing to the two American
soldiers, "and anoint your bodies with their blood!"
Instantly we saw our error in supposing our friends were dead, for when
the bound soldiers saw two of the _Juramentados_ seize their _borangs_,
each made a violent effort to break his bonds.
"That priest is mine," said Moriarty, "I've always loved 'em."
We fired together. The priest, two _Juramentados_, and five warriors
lay dead or dying. The others were instantly an awakened den of wolves.
I flinch, Eloise, in writing you this, for it brings the tears even now
as I write. Its ending was in blood and the passing of two I loved as
only one man learns to love another who has backed him to death in the
last ditch. They rushed us quickly, for their leaders were
_Juramentados_ and they never retreat, but like a wounded jungle lion
charge instantly the men who have wounded them. They were ten to one
against us, and fast and furious was their rush, but, though it was only
a short distance, we bunched, and shoulder to back shingled the ground
with their dead, stopping many of them, who died at our very feet. The
others swarmed upon us, led by howling _Juramentados_, until even now I
awake at night with their twanging hyena howl in my ears. Our Colts
crackled fiercely for an instant in their faces. Then Davis fell and I
would have followed him had not Moriarty, shooting quick and shouldering
between us, blown out the brute's brains with the last shell in his
revolver....
I was dazed, bloody, and knocked down into the fissure at our backs by
the glancing _borang_ blow of the last of the _Juramentados_.... When I
came fully to myself I crawled for protection under an outcropping rock,
and none too soon, for the fanatic above hurled a spear the next instant
that quivered in the spot I had just left.
And, emboldened by the frenzied _Juramentado_, and seeking my blood, I
saw other heads, peering from over the fissure side and around boulder
and rock.
I was protected for a time under the boulder. I was faint, and hearing
running water I drank.
* * * * *
I prayed that I might not faint again. The wound on my head was a clean
cut. "If only I do not faint again," I kept saying while I bathed my
wound, and, packing my cap with my handkerchief, pulled it tight over my
temples to shut off the blood.
Then I became calm and indifferent. I marvel even now to think how
undreading of death I was, feeling that I was so soon to die;
undreading, for in all the queerness of my head and the dizziness and
throbbing and the bitterness of the knowledge of the unequal fight, I
thought always of you and of Andrew Jackson, who when shot by Dickinson,
clinched his teeth on a bullet to keep from biting his tongue, clinched,
stood, and killed his man! ...
Down in that death hole with savages above me waiting for a chance to
brain me or bolo me to death, I heard--I'll swear I heard Aunt Lucretia
say, "_Would Andrew Jackson faint or fight here, Jack?_"
Yes, Eloise, believe me or not, but then I knew I would not faint again.
I crawled further under the rock, lying flat, face up, and drew both my
Colts....
My belt still held the shells. The fight I had with myself must have
been long, for they found forty-three empty shells at my side next
day.... I don't remember distinctly what happened, for my head would
spin every now and then and I had to close my eyes.
Then I fired twice, thrice... A fool was starting down to see where I
was, a fool, and he met a fool's fate at my feet... So for hours I shot
that way and none dared to try to come down again, none but one who
suddenly dropped upon me from the left like a tiger from a cliff, the
last of the red painted things who sought death in order to gain
Paradise.
He died literally on me; and he died quickly. He did not know that
having killed his companions with my right, I was on my back with a Colt
also in my left. So died the last of the _Juramentados_....
I knew this would end it, and I was glad, for I was beginning to forget,
with the fever flame licking amid the fagots of my brain. I had strange
deliriums.... AEons passed with me wallowing in the water beneath me,
thrusting my burning head into it and not knowing it.... And then came
the end of the delirium in the great joy of the volley of shots above me
and the cheers of the First Tennessee. I heard our General telling me I
was all right, and then the dreams returned, for I saw you on Satan, in
_khaki_, riding with the firing line; and then my head was in your lap,
and you were crying over me and kissing me, before all the boys. And
like one in a nightmare, when strange things happen, I told them it was
not real, that I was touched of a _borang_ in my head, and was a double
weakling for dreaming and then being such a fool as to weep over a
dream. But they only cheered me and laughed.
* * * * *
I remember very distinctly when I awoke in the hospital at Cebu. It was
night and the tropic moon lay half masted in the sea. I saw the
gunboats out in the bay and Old Glory floating from fort and mast head.
But I did not see the Indiana. I knew I was feverish and yet so sane,
so sane that it hurt as does all great saneness which follows a great
sleep. Then a sea-gull cried as it swept past my window, and that lone
sea-gull's cry quite overcame me: for then I remembered my first dream,
and you, and now I awoke and you were not there.... I turned my face to
the wall. Then I felt someone kneeling by me, her arms around me, her
kisses on my cheek. I heard someone saying, "Jack, Jack, be still, and
be very calm, for it is I, Eloise, your Eloise. I have nursed you a
month--I have slept by your side, darling, right here by your side, your
own Eloise. And now it is all right and so sweet that--hold my
hands--Jack--tight--tight Jack--we are going to say again our little
prayer, thanking God together as of old...."
Then the next day when I was stronger and the danger had passed, we
spent the morning alone in the little hospital ward holding hands
sillily, talking always, and kissing when we could. And you told me how
it had all been: how Elsie and her father had found you and taken you
home with them to the great English surgeon who had cured you: how,
knowing I was here in the Philippines you had come as a trained nurse to
be near me: and how it had been fixed between the General and you that
we were to meet the very day that came so near being my last. And you
told of the strange dream you had that night, of my call that seemed to
come to you, and how, mounting a pony and dressed in _khaki_ that you
might pass the line as a soldier, you rode to our camp alone through the
night, following the army's path over the mountain, reaching our last
line at daylight, to find the battalion gone since midnight, to our
rescue. Taking Satan you followed: and it was Satan and you who found
me: for they had rescued Ross and Billings and found the bodies of poor
Davis and Moriarty, but they could not find me. All day they had ridden
and searched; and all day, delirious and fever stricken, I had lain in
the fissure under the boulder: and in the still of the evening, when the
boys had all but despaired, and you, heart-wrung and broken, had rested
a moment in the General's fly, suddenly there came a strange whistling
up the canyon, and Satan had broken loose going to it, the boys
following: and they had found me in wild delirium, but dreaming of home
and blowing the call of old for Satan with the whistle I had forgotten
was in my pocket. Even as you told me all this, old Hawthorne came in
with the familiar twinkle in his eye and bending over me stroked my
forehead as my dead sire would have done, saying, "Well, Colonel
Ballington, how do you feel to-day?
"Jack," you cried, "he shall not tell you first! I hadn't got to that,
General. Please let me tell it all to him, my own self."
The General laughed and nodded, enjoying our happiness as if it were his
own.
"It is all too good, Jack," you went on, "but the President himself has
appointed you a Colonel in the regular army. And see--we have saved it
till you wakened--our dear old General and I--here is the message
President McKinley sent when he heard you had led them from the
Indiana's deck to the rescue of the Regulars."
Then you read the message yourself, with tremor and tears:
"No more splendid exhibition of patriotism was ever shown than was shown
a few days ago in the Philippines. That gallant Tennessee Regiment from
our Southern border, that had been absent from home and family and
friends for more than a year, and was embarked on the good ship
_Indiana_ homeward bound--when the enemy attacked our forces remaining
near Cebu, these magnificent soldiers disembarked from their ship,
joined their comrades on the firing line and achieved a glorious triumph
for American arms. That is an example of patriotism that should be an
inspiration to duty to all of us in every part of our common country."
"It is good of him," I said, "God bless him--the sweetest, gentlest man
who ever sat in that chair. But if I get well I am going home and to my
trees."
But still the old General stood smiling, and I knew there was more to
come. And, seeing it, you came over, smiling funnily yourself, and with
little tears, too; and kneeling, you laid your face against mine.
"Jack, forgive us, it was a mean thing to do, but you have been married
a month to-day and don't know it! But when we brought you here, you
talked all right--though you were a little flighty--and begged so hard
for me to marry you then--and--and--somebody had to sleep right here
with you, nursing you day and night, for the surgeon said it would all
be in the nursing and a mighty poor little chance at that--Jack--for it
was a terrible blow, cutting to your brain--and you begged so--and--I
didn't want ever to leave you again while you lived, and after the
Chaplain married us holding your hands in mine and kneeling here just as
I am now--it looked as if marrying had killed you, Jack--you went down
so quickly and deeply into the valley--and now to see you well--"
You were crying in my arms. I could only kiss you, calling you wife.
Then your old fun came back as of old. "It wasn't a square deal,
Jack--to take advantage of a sick man like that, and so, well--well, if
you are willing we will call it all off and wait till we get back home
where we will have a grand wedding at The Home Stretch; for I have been
cheated out of my _trousseau_, and my honeymoon, my new shoes and the
rice that ought to be in my back."
"I have had make-believe enough," I said, kissing you again. "That
marriage holds and is good enough for me."
Then the home going, overtaking the regiment at San Francisco and the
thunder of guns and welcoming whistles as we reached our native
Tennessee. And there, amid the great hubbub, and the welcoming
committee as our train rolled in, stood the old General, my grandsire,
holding back the crowd with his crutch that he might get to me first,
and rattling around on his wooden leg, shouting to my great
embarrassment:--"_By God, there he is--Jack--my grandson, Jack! I
raised him--He's my daughter's son--a game cock--the old blue hen's
chicken!..._"
We have it framed now, Eloise, that telegram from the President.
"EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON. NOVEMBER 21, 1899.
On the Nation's roll of honor is the First Tennessee Regiment U.S.
Volunteers, and nobly has the distinction been won. Their country's
gratitude awaits the homecoming of these brave men.