It seems that the Patriotic Daughters of America were now out of patience and the vice-president out of funds. It seemed that her brief ascendancy had carried the lady to such an alt.i.tude as to dizzy her brain and rob her of all sense of proportion. It seems that the surgeons in charge of three hospitals had complained of her meddling, that colonels of several regiments had discovered her to be the author of letters to the home papers setting forth that neglect, abuse, and starvation were driving their men to desertion or the grave. It seems that the Red Cross had protested against her as the originator of malignant stories at their expense, and it was evidently high time to get rid of her, yet how could they if that case was to be tried? Zen.o.bia Perkins knew they could not and conducted herself accordingly. She came this day to the Ayuntamiento to demand pay for what she termed her long detention at Manila.
"You compel me to remain against my will because I"m an indispensable witness," said she to the saturnine adjutant-general, beyond whom she never now succeeded in pa.s.sing. She was volubly berating him, to his grim amus.e.m.e.nt, when the lattice doors from the corridor swung open and two officers entered.
For nearly two minutes they stood waiting for a break in her tempestuous flow of words, but as none came, the senior impatiently stepped forward and the adjutant-general, looking up, sprang from his chair just as the chief himself came hurrying out from the _sanctum sanctorum_ and greeted the newcomers with cordially clasping hands. The lady too had risen.
This was another of those stuck-up star-wearers who at San Francisco as much as told her she was a nuisance, and who wouldn"t send her by transport to Manila. Yet here she was in spite of them all, and the most important woman on the island! Zen.o.bia"s face was flushed with triumph that the star-wearer should be made to feel and see before she would consent to leave the room.
"Well, I shall have to interrupt you gentlemen," said she, "for _my_ business won"t keep if you propose to keep _me_. I want to know right here and now, General Drayton, whether I"m to get my pay or not; if not, I don"t propose to wait another day in Manila, and you can get out of the sc.r.a.pe the best way you know how. No one here but me could swear that young man Foster was dead, and you know it."
"You"ve sworn to what isn"t so, madame," interposed the new arrival placidly. "Here"s that young man Foster!" and as he spoke the lattice doors again swung open, and, very pale, a tall youth in civilian dress was ushered in, at sight of whom Major Farquhar fairly shouted.
"How"d I get him?" said the new-comer five minutes later. "Found him aboard the Coptic when she met us as we were pulling out from Honolulu.
He was going back to the States. Left Hong Kong before the story was published. Didn"t want to come, of course, but had to."
"Wasn"t there time to write his mother? They surely would have cabled, and the Coptic must have got into San Francisco a week ago."
"Certainly! Letter was sent right on by the steamer, addressed to Cincinnati."
"O Lord!" said Drayton. "And she was at "Frisco all the time. Colonel,"
he added to his chief-of-staff, "what"s the first transport home?"
"Zealandia, sir; to-morrow."
"Sorry for the Zealandia, but Zen.o.bia must go with her."
CHAPTER XX.
Of course we had not heard the last of her. Honolulu correspondents of the press had little to write of in those days, but made their little long, and Zen.o.bia"s stories were the biggest things yet brought from Manila. Those stories were seven days getting from Honolulu to San Francisco, which was less than half the time it took their author to bring them to listening ears. Anybody aboard the Zealandia could have told the scribes the lady was a fabricator of the first magnitude, but what live correspondent wants to have a good story spoiled? In just twenty-seven days from that on which Zen.o.bia bade farewell to Manila her winged words were flashed all over the States, and by thousands were the stones swallowed that death, disease, pestilence and famine, bribery and corruption, vice and debauchery, desertion and demoralization ran riot in the army at Manila, all due to the incapacity, if not actual complicity, of officers in high position. But mercifully were they spared the knowledge of these astonishing facts until the papers themselves began to reach the Eighth Corps some ten weeks after Zen.o.bia had left it to its fate, and by that time every fellow had his hands full, for the long-looked-for outbreak had come at last, and the long, thin Yankee fighting line was too busy making history to waste ink or temper in denying yarns that, after all, were soon forgotten.
Then, too, we had been hearing stories that could not be denied right there in the southern suburbs, and having excitement that needed no Zen.o.bia to enhance it. To begin with, Walter Foster"s tale was of itself of vivid interest, and, though only the general and Farquhar and Ray actually heard it, and only two or possibly three staff officers were supposed to see it after it had been reduced to writing, every steamer and transport now was bringing officers" families, and men must tell their wives something once in a while, otherwise they might never know what _is_ going on and so will believe all manner of things that are not.
Walter Foster"s mother learned by cable that the remains she awaited, and that reached port almost the day she got the despatch, were not those of her only son, but of one who had practically died for him. And even in the joy of that supreme moment the woman in her turned, after all, in pity to weep for the motherless lad who had been her boy"s warmest friend in his hours of doubt and darkness and despair.
A weak vessel was "Wally," as Farquhar had intimated, and so easily cowed and daunted that in the dread of the punishment accorded the deserter he had skulked in disguise at Hong Kong, leaving all the burden of scouting, pleading, and planning for him to Willard, his old-time chum, who had even less knowledge and experience of army official life than himself. Willard"s early letters to Hong Kong gave Foster little hope, for at first the only people the recruit could "sound" were private soldiers like himself. Then Foster read of the arrival of the Sacramento at Manila, of the presence there of Maidie Ray, and then he wrote urging his quondam chum to endeavor to see her, to tell her of his desperate straits, to implore her to exert influence to get him pardoned, and, in order that she might know that his envoy was duly accredited, he sent Willard his chief treasure, that little _carte-de-visite_, together with a few imploring lines.
Then not a word came from Willard for three mortal weeks, but Foster"s daily visits to the bank were at last rewarded by a despatch from home bidding him return at once by first steamer, sending him abundant means, and a.s.suring him all would be well.
And when the news of his own murder was published in the Hong Kong papers, without the faintest intimation to the officials of the bank as to his intentions, he was homeward bound, and never heard a word of it all until recognized by an officer aboard the Queen as the Coptic floated into Honolulu Harbor. There he was arrested and turned back.
Among "Billy Benton"s" few effects no letters, no such picture, had been found, nothing, in fact, to connect him with Foster. Colonel Brent knew what had become of the _carte-de-visite_, but--how happened it in other hands than those of Benton? That too was not long to be a mystery.
One day in late December a forlorn-looking fellow begged a drink of the bartender at the Alhambra on the Escolta--said he was out of money, deserted by his friends, and took occasion to remind the dispenser of fluid refreshment that a few weeks ago when he had funds and friends both he had spent many a dollar there. The bartender waved him away.
"Awe, give the feller a drink," said boys in blue, in the largeness of their nature and the language of the ranks. "What"ll you take, Johnny?
Have one with us," and one of the managers hastened over and whispered to some of the flannel-shirted squad, but to no purpose.
The "boys" were bent on benevolence, and "beat" though he might be, the gaunt stranger was made welcome, shared their meat and drink, and, growing speedily confidential in his cups, told them that he could tell a tale some folks would pay well to hear, and then proceeded to stiffen out in a fit.
This brought to mind the event on the Bagumbayan, and somebody said it was "the same feller if not the same fit," and it wouldn"t do to leave him there. They took him along in their cab and across to their barracks by the Puente Colgante, and a doctor ministered to him, for it was plain the poor fellow was in sore plight, and a few days later a story worth the telling was going the rounds. The good chaplain of the Californians had heard his partial confession and urged him to tell the whole truth, and that night the last vestige of the crumbling case against Gerard Stuyvesant came tumbling to earth, and Connelly, from the Cuartel de Meisic, nearly ran his st.u.r.dy legs off to find Farnham and tell him the tale.
"My real name," said the broken man, "is of no consequence to anybody. I soldiered nearly ten years ago in the Seventh Cavalry, but that fight at Wounded Knee was too much for my nerve, and the boys made life a burden to me afterwards. I "took on" in another regiment after I skipped from the Seventh, but luck was against me. We were sent to Fort Meade, and there was a gambler in Deadwood, Sackett by name, who had been a few months in the Seventh, but got bob-tailed out for some dirty work, and he knew me at once and swore he"d give me away if I didn"t steer fellows up against his game after pay-day. I had to do it, but Captain Ray got onto it all and broke up the scheme and ran Sackett off the reservation, and then he blew on me and I had to quit again. He shot a man over cards, for he was a devil when in drink, and had to clear out, and we met again in Denver. "Each could give the other away by that time," said he, and so we joined partnership."
The rest was soon told. Sackett got a job on young Foster"s ranch and fell into some further trouble. But when the war came all of them were enlisted, Foster and Sackett in the regulars and he in the First Colorado, but they discharged him at Manila because he had fits, and that gave him a good deal of money for a few days, travel pay home, and all that. Then who should turn up but Sackett with "money to burn" and a scheme to make more. They hired a room in Ermita, and next thing he knew Sackett and some sailor men held up and robbed a soldier, and Sackett was in a tearing rage because no money-belt was found on him. They only got some letters, that little photograph, and perhaps forty dollars "Mex." The photograph he recognized at once,--his former captain"s daughter,--and he begged for it and kept it about him until one evening he was taken with another fit, and when he came to the picture was gone.
That night he found Sackett nearly crazy drunk at their lodgings in Ermita. They had a Filipino boy to wait on them then, and Sackett had told the boy where he could find money and jewelry while the family were at dinner around at Colonel Brent"s. The boy was willing enough; he was an expert. But he came back scared through; said that the soldiers were close after him. He had some jewelry and a pretty revolver. Sackett told him to keep the jewelry, but took the watch and pistol, and that night the sentries and patrols were searching everywhere, and Sackett and the sailors said they must get away somehow. They drank some more, and finally thought they had a good chance just after the patrol left, and the sentry was talking to an officer on the Calle Real.
They sneaked downstairs and out into the Faura, and there Sackett ran right into the soldier"s arms. There was a short, terrible battle, the soldier against Sackett and his sailor friend. The sailor got the sentry"s gun away, and Sackett and he wrestled as far as the corner, when there was a shot; the soldier dropped all in a heap and Sackett and the sailor ran for their lives around the corner,--the last he had ever seen or heard of them up to this moment.
So that was how poor Maidie"s pistol happened to be picked up on the Calle Real and why one or two a.s.sertive officers lately connected with the provost-marshal"s and secret-service department concluded that it might be well for them to try regimental duty awhile. That was how it happened, too, that Lieutenant Stuyvesant was prevailed on to take a short leave and run over to Hong Kong. But he came back in a hurry, for there was need of every man and trouble imminent "at the front."
The dawn of that memorable February day had come that saw Manila girdled by the flame of forty thousand rifles and shrouded in the smoke that drifted from the burning roofs of outlying villages from whose walls, windows, and church towers the insurgent islanders had poured their pitiless fire upon the ranks of the American soldiery.
In front of a stone-walled enclosure bordering the princ.i.p.al street in an eastward suburb two or three officers were in earnest consultation.
From the ambulance close at hand the attendants were carefully lifting some sorely wounded men. Up the street farther east several little parties coming slowly, haltingly from the front, told that the incessant crash and rattle of musketry in that direction was no mere _feu-de-joie_, while every now and then the angry spat of the steel-clad Mauser on the stony road, the whiz and whirr about the ears of the few who for duty"s sake or that of example held their ground in the highway, gave evidence that the Tagal marksmen had their eyes on every visible group of Americans.
In the side streets at right angles to the main thoroughfare reserve battalions were crouching, sheltered from the leaden storm, and awaiting the longed-for order to advance and sweep the field at the front. From the grim, gray walls of the great church and convent, which for weeks had been strictly guarded by order of the American generals against all possible intrusion or desecration on part of their men, came frequent flash and report and deadly missile aimed at the helpless wounded, the hurrying ambulances, even at a symbol as sacred as that which towered above its altars--the blood-red cross of Geneva.
It was the Tagal"s return for the honor and care and consideration shown the Church of Rome. As another ambulance came swiftly to the spot, its driver swayed, clasped his hands upon his breast, and, with the blood gushing from his mouth, toppled forward into the arms of the hospital attendants. It was more than flesh and blood or the brigade commander could stand.
"Burn that church!" was the stern order as the general spurred on to the front, and a score of soldiers, leaping from behind the stone walls, dashed at the barricaded doors. A young staff officer, galloping down the road, reined in at sight of the little party and whirled about by the general"s side.
"It"s perfectly true, sir," said he. "Right across the bridge in front of the block-house you can hear him plainly. It"s a white man giving orders to the Filipinos." The general nodded.
"We"ll get him presently. Do they understand the orders on the left?"
"Everywhere, sir. All are ready and eager," and even the native pony ridden by the aide seemed quivering with excitement as, horse and rider, they fell back and joined the two officers following their chief.
"Hot in front, Stuyvie?" queried the first in undertone, as a Mauser zipped between their heads to the detriment of confidential talk, and a great burst of cheers broke from the blue line crouching just ahead across the open field. "Why, d--n it, man, you"re hit now!"
"Hush!" answered Stuyvesant imploringly, as he pressed a gauntleted hand to his side. "Don"t let the general know. I want to join Vinton in a moment. It"s only a tear along the skin." But blood was soaking through the serge of his blue sack-coat and streaking the loose folds of his riding-breeches, and the bright color in his clear skin was giving way to pallor.
"Tear, indeed! Here! Quick, orderly! Help me there on the other side!"
and the captain sprang from saddle. A soldier leaped forward, turning loose his pony, and as the general, with only one aide and orderly, rode on into the smoke-cloud overhanging the line, Gerard Stuyvesant, fainting, slid forward into the arms of his faithful friends.
A few hours later, "lined up" along the river-bank, a great regiment from the far West, panting and exultant, stood resting on its arms and looking back over the field traversed in its first grand charge. Here, there, everywhere it was strewn with insurgent dead and sorely wounded.
Here, there, and everywhere men in American blue were flitting about from group to group, tendering canteens of cold water to the wounded, friend and enemy alike.
Far back towards the dusty highway where the ambulances were hurrying, and close to the abutments of a ma.s.sive stone bridge that crossed a tributary of the Pasig, three officers, a surgeon, and half-a-dozen soldiers were grouped about a prostrate form in the pale blue uniform, with the gold embroidery and broad stripes of a Filipino captain, but the face was ghastly white, the language ghastly Anglo-Saxon.
With the blood welling from a shothole in his broad, burly chest and the seal of death already settling on his ashen brow, he was scowling up into the half-compa.s.sionate, half-contemptuous faces about him. Here lay the "_Capitan Americano_" of whom the Tagal soldiers had been boasting for a month--a deserter from the army of the United States, a commissioned officer in the ranks of Aguinaldo, shot to death in his first battle in sight of some who had seen and known him "in the blue."
Lieutenant Stuyvesant, revived by a long pull at the doctor"s flask, his bleeding stanched, had again pressed forward to take his part in the fight, but now lay back in the low Victoria that the men had run forward from the village, and looked down upon the man who in bitter wrath and hatred had vowed long months before to have his heart"s blood,--the man who had so nearly done him to death in Honolulu. Even now in Sackett"s dying eyes something of the same brutal rage mingled with the instant gleam of recognition that for a moment flashed across his distorted features. It seemed retribution indeed that his last conscious glance should fall upon the living face of the man to whom he owed his rescue from a fearful death that night in far-away Nevada.
But, badly as he was whipped that brilliant Sunday, "Johnny Filipino"