slowness that was weighing down his movements, They did not come to the charge like men and summoned from within the depths of him the that have written the fuller pages of history from last muscle power to speed his longer blade as it time immemorial—else Morgan would have been flashed like a serpent’s tongue before the distorted overborne and cut down at once. But they were faces turned upward on the stairs.
fierce and deadly. They slashed and feinted; and As he withdrew another step—bringing
twice Morgan felt the whistling breath of a hurled him to Randolph’s feet—he thanked the god of bolo.
battles for putting into the heads of his foemen The taller, more slender man with the
forgetfulness of the rifle that lay less than thirty wicked kris like a sheet of silver flame was far the yards away.
boldest, and a better warrior than his fellows. His And there—on that very step where he
blows were hard and cunning; and but for the stood—he resolved to stay.
broken sword with which he fended, Morgan Randolph was either dead, or, more likely, would have had a deeper cut in his thigh.
had fainted; and to pass higher was to leave a
Adventure
10
fellow officer to certain death; or if dead already, of the old boatswain cried:
to mutilation.
“Get ’em! Get ’em! Down at ’em.” And
Not a glimmering remembrance of what
bounding headlong down the steps he came.
Randolph had been to him came into his brain. He Down the stairs with perilous leaps, six was fighting instinctively the fight that a man of sailors came on the heels of Old Farry. Their rifles courage makes for another. Death with six were tipped with steel. After the first shot from handsful of gloaming knives was at his heart. But over balustrade nobody stopped to fire; the he had no thought of death other than that it meant bayonets were hungry for the taste of flesh.
the end of the fight.
The Filipinos were cornered. They ran
To turn away or to stop before the end
toward the broad oaken doors as the nearest way would be to check abruptly the momentum of a out; but the trap they had set for others held them.
courage that gave no more heed to the grave than a Before a hand could touch the wooden bar meteor in its flight gives to the sun toward which it they saw that there was no escape. The sailors rushes. Some things can not be done!
were up with them—and as one man, the Filipinos It seemed that he had been on the stairs for dropped their weapons, flung up their hands and hours. Had he been able to look at it, the watch screeched for mercy.
that ticked in his pocket would have told him that Morgan, leaning over the banister,
he had not been in the corridor altogether more shouted:
than fourteen minutes.
“Don’t shoot! Take them prisoners!”
His arms seemed sheathed in lead. His
The Filipinos were hedged with bayonets wounded leg was weal—not in the least painful, pointed just as close as the furious sailors could for wounds ache only when the nerves have time point them without drawing blood.
to take the message of the torn flesh. He opened Old Farry dropped the point of his cutlass, his mouth and gulped down the air, heaving his put his hands on his hips and looking toward lungs like bellows at a damp forge.
Morgan who still held a blood-stained sword in The foemen too had quit their yelling, and each hand, said disgustedly—
were grunting and snarling and panting hoarsely
“Well I’ll be —!”
like starving jackals breaking through the last When Morgan turned away and started
struggles of a downed stag.
bend over the unconscious body of Randolph, he The end was in sight. Morgan gathered
became aware of the woman standing above him himself for a last leap. He would not wait to be on the stairs.
struck down when simply no longer able to lift an She was very pale and frightened and
arm.
trembled. She could scarcely speak, but she asked In another minute he felt that sheer again and again: exhaustion would lower his swords and leave open
“Is he dead? Is he dead?”
the way for the death-thrust. But to fling himself Randolph himself had pulled the bolo
forward—points first—he knew would be to make from his ribs, and the wound had bled him into more dear the price of his death.
unconsciousness.
He lifted himself on his toes, sank quickly
“Blankets—water—quick,” Morgan said
to his haunches for the spring that would carry him to her; and without a word she hurried away.
on to the heads of the men that leaned forward six He called to one of the sailors to come steps below him—and hesitated.
from below, and they gently carried Randolph The Filipinos, too, paused suddenly with down the red-stained stairs and laid him carefully weapons held in arms as though magically turned on the blanket that the woman brought. She to stone.
carried, too, a glass with a little water in it, and Overhead there was crashing and shouting explained that it was all she had left in her room of and swearing, the stamp of furious feet—and from what she had taken when she prepared for the the balustrade above, a gun roared.
siege two days before.
Above the clash and roar the shrill voice But the boatswain opened the great doors
U. S. A.
11
again on the noiseless hinges, and the three sailors, were straight and his head up. Behind him came driving in a lone prisoner—not counting the four sailors, their rifles slung across their Chinaman who had served as a guide—to put with shoulders, and each sailor held the corner of a those that stood fearfully against the wall, came in.
mattress upon which lay the covered body of their These went with Miss Farnum to the well at the ensign. Miss Farnum walked by the side of the rear and fetched water.
stretcher. In her hands was a small valise—all her earthly possessions—which she refused to let any IX
one carry for her. It seemed to her that the others were burdened enough. Behind the stretcher came
“IT WAS just this way, sir,” Old Farry explained seven Filipinos with their hands bound behind to Morgan while two of the sailors were gone up-them; and many had blood on their tattered shirts stairs with Miss Farnum to get a mattress that and trousers, and their heads and arms showed would serve as a stretcher. “We chased that feller wounds. Then followed two sailors with, rifles till he got tired o’ runnin’ an’ ducked in a held at points forward and butts against the hip: doorway. We busted in the door an’ got him. No guards they were. Behind them were four more thin’ to it. We was comin’ back—almost here—
sailors, marching with rifles on their shoulders; when all o’ sudden the fellers out there started and bringing up the rear was the old boatswain, his yellin’ an’ makin’ signs o’ trouble.
drawn cutlass swinging across his breast with
“Fer a minute after I found out what’s the every step.
trouble I didn’t know what t’ do or jest how t’ get A crowd filled the street before and after in here. We wasted a good two minutes tryin’ t’
them; but it gave way without need of word or batter in them doors with rocks. The lady was gesture from Morgan, and followed at a distance jumpin’ around up there on the bridge. You know of respect behind Old Farry, who did not deign to that makes a feller kind o’ nervous, sir. I tol’ her to cast so much as one glance behind him. Those throw down a line an’ I had t’ explain ’t was a who stood at the side as the little procession rope I wanted.
passed, pressed each other tightly back against the
“But she didn’t have none. She ducked
walls of the buildings to make more room; and all into ’er cabin on’ brought out a couple o’ sheets.
looked with awe upon the seven o
f their own kin We tore ’em in two, spliced ’em together in a and kind that trudged shamefacedly behind the Jiffy, sir, tossed an end up to her an’ told ’er t’
improvised stretcher.
make it fast above. It give way jest as soon as I But there was no thought of rescue, of
started up. Had t’ be done over. Next time ’twas laughter, or of missiles hurled from a distance. Not better.
much! Those were the men that had blown the
“I told three men t’ stay b’low an’ watch fleet of Spain out of the water and they looked like that sniper and Chink an’ scare off the niggers that men who could do more if tempted in the least.
was pokin’ their heads aroun’ out there. The Ten men bring back seven prisoners and through fellers come up hand o’er hand like they was streets lined with their kith and friends! What raised on a windjammer. The lady had ’bout manner of men were these, indeed, when the ever’thing in the place piled ’gainst that door of Spaniards had moved about to make arrests only in hern, an’ then, by ——, sir, if she wasn’t the first groups of fifty and hundreds?
’un out. I Jest as the last trunk was heaved away, At the fort Ensign Morgan turned over his she bolted. ’Twas her that fired.”
prisoners to Captain Dayton, who whistled wonderingly at what he saw, but had to imagine X
what he believed, for Morgan said nothing more than that there had been a little skirmish and as THE little detachment again filed through the many were dead as were prisoners. But the streets of Cavite. At the head were Morgan and the Chinaman, still unmoved and imperturbable, was imperturbable Chinaman. Morgan limped slightly, recommended to Captain Dayton for what favors and there was blood all over him; but his shoulders might suggest themselves to him as fitting for
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12
services done according to promise.
He turned his face away and there was
On board the flagship, Morgan made his
moisture in his eyes. It was not of those two men report to the admiral. He told of how he and alone that he thought: it was that his country Randolph had been trapped, and of how Randolph would never lose her battles while she had such had leaped forward deliberately to take the blow men to bear her arms.
intended for him, and of how the quick-witted boatswain and Miss Farnum had promptly effected MISS FARNUM? The admiral got passage for her the rescue. It was some weeks later before on the mail dispatch-boat so that she went to Randolph told his version to the admiral. He had Hongkong, from where she cabled to friends; and seen much of the fight before he became neither Morgan nor Randolph ever heard of her unconscious. And when he had finished, the again. There are times when love of women is not admiral put his hand on the young ensign’s the greatest thing in the world.
shoulder and started to speak. But he said nothing.
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