The Woman with a Stone Heart / A Romance of the Philippine War

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aratory to shooting them all down in a body. Gilmore, being an officer, protested against having his hands tied. He claimed, according to the accepted rules of warfare, that on account of his ra

fatal command, "Fire!", when a shout from the bank stopped her and for a moment engaged the attention of both the Americans and the Fil

across to the opposite shore. After bailing the water out of the boat and plugg

was emphatically denied. What was done with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in a

ilmore and his comrades, and left to die. The Lieutenant asked that a native doctor be summ

rried them, and together the whole procession was marched in

n telling him of their fate. Permission was granted, but the note was never delivered. The two scouts who wen

luding that they were either captured or killed, the crew of the Yorktown,

ern outskirts of the little town of Baler, a mile and a half farther on. By this time the wounded men were suffering terribly. Little Venville's a

as a fortress by the Spanish garrison whom they had originally set out to relieve. The Americans had

his arm. Out of the big stems of these native herbs he squeezed a milky secretion which he permitted to drop into the gaping wounds of the Americans. The torture of the wounded occasioned by this liquid was damnable. The men grew deathly pale. They rolled an

le to go along. Obeying the stubborn orders of the rapacious Filipinos his comrades left him lying on the floor of the old rickety bamboo church,-wounded-uncared for-suffering-hungry-thirsty-dying. A year later the assistance of the entire naval org

ther, ill

ng, "Where

rs from t

o bring

ty-the natives assembled by thousands in the villages along the road. Every one of them kept crowding forward to get to touch the Americans to see what their skins felt like. Others were looking for the long feathers in their hair, which they had heard so much ab

e very hostile to the Americans. It was all the native guard could do to keep the Filipinos from doing violence to the

s hurriedly prepared to leave. Orders were given to march the prisoners overland north and then westward

and refused to fight, and who were later imprisoned and terribly misused by Aguinaldo's selected guards; and eighteen Americans in addition to Gilmore's party (total twenty-six Americans), who had been captured in as many different ways around Manila by the crafty, cunning Filipinos. Among them was Frank Stone, of the U. S. S

n. He took his captivity as a joke, told stories to keep the prisoners good natured, and painted on ever boulder that he passed the seemingly sacrilegious words,

imprisoned for three months longer. The sudden presence of an American war-ship in the harbor, off Vigan, caused the natives to abandon that city an

ners, ordered them to go on; they could not. He threatened to shoot them. Gilmore interceded for them without avail. The Americans refused to leave their Anglo-Saxon comrade

torrent dancing down the rocky ledges in its onward course to the sea. At a widened place in the canon, the Filipi

e Filipino lieutenant to his side Gilmore asked him why he did not shoot them on the oppos

e of them ever be found by your countrymen; but a few nights ago when you showed me that crucifix tattooed on your chest while you were a midshipman in America, I decided not to carry out my

s with against the savages whose territory we will have to cross in order to get to the sea. Can't you spare us at least two rifles and some ammunitio

lmly said, "I shall not dare to do it. An American relief party, seeking your

id not be

,-sick, nearly starved, practically nude, with nothing but two battle axes and a bolo for both weapons of defense and for tools-the Americans at last found t

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f McClure's

ter they had gotten up and begun to saunter around, everybody present was suddenly shocked by the shrill yell of a strong American voice. They all looked up, and while their hearts for a moment seemi

ad prisoners fell on the strong

ts of his captivity among the natives. When his son bade him goodby as he started for the Philippines, Judge Ha

nly chance for self-preservation and a possible return to civilization lay in carrying out Gilmore's designs to build bamboo rafts and flo

and died the next day. His comrades took his body with them and did not bury it until they finally reached the little town of Ambulug, at the mouth of the stream they had b

n river. Here they were met by a detachment of American Marines who took them aboard a war-ship, lying out to sea, which carried them a

ands with each of them; congratulated t

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f McClure's