Chapter VIII: The Hero’s Adventure: the Mystery of the Hammam (2)

“Well,” concluded the rubber, “he skipped, and I have never seen him since, from that day till to-night, when I found you scrapping with him, for this man is Harry Maidslow for sure. If you want to talk to him now, he’ll probably be all right. He’s had time to have a plunge, and you’ll find him sleeping upstairs. I’ve got to go home, so good-by. Come round again some time and tell me about him!”

Admeh Drake, after a swim in the tank himself, passed through the main salon and upstairs, acting upon the hint of the Dermograph Artist. The place was lined with cots, now filled with snoring occupants, and it was not until he had explored a second story that Admeh found him of the clay-yellow beard. He was alone in a secluded ward, sleeping peacefully. Admeh touched him, and Maidslow sat up suddenly with a terrified stare.

“What d’you want? What d’you want of me?” he cried.

Admeh was astonished at his fright, but hastened to relieve the man’s suspense. “Oh, nothing bad, I hope. Is your name—” here he hesitated, and the man’s face showed abject fear—“Maidslow?”—and the mouth relaxed its tensity.

“Yes,” said the man. “What d’you want?”

“I want to tell you that there’s fifteen thousand dollars coming to you!” said Drake.

The man stared now in bewilderment.

“Ever know old Max Miller, Swiss bell-ringer?” “A little,” said Maidslow. “Why?”

“He’s your rich uncle. He’s left you his fortune. You caught him when you stole Maxie from him!”

“See here,” said Maidslow, “what kind of a jolly are you giving me anyway? I haven’t seen Maxie—I suppose you mean my wife—for two years. If you know anything about her, tell me the whole thing, and tell it slow.”

For the second time that night Admeh Drake narrated his adventures, beginning at Coffee John’s, and ending with the news of Maxie and the legacy left to Harry Maidslow. But, when he mentioned Colonel Knowlton’s name as the trustee, Maidslow, who had listened so far in delight, gave an exclamation of despair.

“Oh, heavens!” he cried, “I can never get that money! Why couldn’t it have been given in charge of some one else? Colonel Knowlton, of all men in the world!”

“Why can’t you get it from him?” Drake asked.

“You listen to my story, and you’ll know,” replied Maidslow.

THE STORY OF THE DESERTER OF THE PHILIPPINES

I don’t exactly know why I married Maxie Morrow, except that I’ve always been a fool about women. The thing came so sudden, I just jumped and caught her on the fly. When she left me, I went pretty much to the bad. Then Harry Maidslow disappeared, because of debts and one thing or another, and I turned up as Harry Roberts in St. Louis. That was just about when the Spanish war broke out. It was too good a chance to lose, and I decided to begin all over again. So I enlisted in the regulars, joining the One Hundred and Fourteenth Infantry. I was hardly more than through the goose step when we were sent to the Philippines.

I was no slouch nor shirk, either, but I knew more about eating than anything else, and I naturally gravitated to the cook’s tent and put him on to a lot of things the boys liked. I got to be rather popular with the company in this way, and when the Commissary Sergeant was appointed in Manila, I managed to get the place, though I was only a rookie. Perhaps the Captain’s wife helped me out some. She, being an officer’s lady, wasn’t supposed to know I was on earth, but somehow she noticed me and fixed it up easy.

Commissary work was a snap—little drill, no guard mount, leave of absence occasionally, and the run of the town in a little pony cart. You see each company had its quota of rations. We could draw them, or leave them and get credit. There was maple syrup and candy, canned fruit, and chocolate, and all sorts of good stuff in the storehouse that we could get at wholesale rates. By cutting down on fresh meat and pinching on bacon, I managed the company’s accounts so that we could have hot griddle-cakes and maple syrup every day. That’s the way I held my job. If I ever become famous it will be for having introduced Pie in the Philippines.

Every morning I drove around Manila, visiting the markets with a man to help me, exchanging sacks of flour for fresh baker’s bread and cakes, getting chickens, and so on, besides making friends right and left. About two nights every week I was dancing or flirting with the half-breed women; Mestizas they called them. That’s how I got into trouble.

Her name was Senorita Maria del Pilar Assompcion Aguilar, and nothing that ever I saw could touch her for looks. She was the kind of woman that makes you forget everything else that ever happened before. She and her brother owned about the whole of a province in the middle of the island of Luzon. When she came into the room it was all over with me. There was more of the Spanish than the Filipino in her, enough to give her the style and air of a lady, but she got her beauty from the tropics. Her hair was like one of those hot black nights they have down there—silky and soft, drifting around her face—but it was her eyes that made you lose sleep. They were blue-black, not melting, but wide-awake and piercing. They were just a bit crossed, hardly a hairbreadth out, but that little cast seemed to make her even prettier than if they were straight. A Kansas sergeant told me that the family was in from their country place, and that the Secret Service people were watching her. She and her brother were suspected of knowing a good deal about Aguinaldo’s plans.

You remember that after the battle of Manila the American troops lay in town for months, just drilling and waiting to see what the insurgents were going to do. There were all sorts of rumours afloat, and nobody knew which way the cat would jump. The Filipinos were camped in a semi-circle outside the city and growing uglier every day. Our sentries were watching them close enough to see every nigger that stuck his finger to his nose at us.

I saw more and more of Maria, danced with her, or went to her house every night I could get off. It wasn’t long before I saw that I had her going. Her brother looked as if he’d like to bolo me in the back, and never left us alone for a moment. I didn’t care. I was too far gone myself to be afraid of him. I’ve seen one or two women in my time, but she could put it over them all.

Love goes pretty fast in hot countries. One night I happened to find her alone. Her brother was away on some Katipunan conspiracy business, most likely, or perhaps dodging our spies. She was dressed like a queen, all ready for me. I had no more than come in when she threw herself into my arms and lay there crying. I had gone too far, and I was in for it.

I let her stay there a little while, kissing her and trying to get her quiet, and then I looked away, and told her what I should have told her long before—that I had a wife and couldn’t marry. She took it pretty hard at first.

After she had cried she laughed, and there was a load off my mind. I said to myself that women must be different down here, and thought I was lucky to get out of it so easy. I thought perhaps she hadn’t been so badly hurt, after all. She said we’d forget it, and be friends, just the same. I was a fool and believed her. She asked me to come back to-morrow, and I said I would.

The next day I met Señor Aguilar, her brother, and he seemed to be as friendly as if we were bunkies. He insisted upon my having a drink with him. He seemed to be glad to know that Maria and I weren’t so much lovers as he had thought. We sat most of the afternoon drinking cognac, and I got more and more pleased at having squared myself with them both. Then some one must have hit me over the head.

When I came to, my head was bursting. My hands were bound and I was covered with a sheet of canvas, being jolted in a little bobbing cart. I yelled for help, and my only answer was the barrel of a Mauser rifle stuck in my face. Then I went off into a stupor, and for the rest of that trip I only remember heat, thirst, hunger, stiff joints and a murderous headache. The journey seemed to go on for years and years, but I didn’t have energy enough even to wonder what had happened or where I was going.

Finally I found myself stretched upon a cot in a white-walled room, looking through a great arched window into a green _patio_ waving with palms. Señor Aguilar was standing beside me, smiling wickedly. Bromo-seltzer wouldn’t have cleared my head the way the sight of him did.

“Señor Roberts,” he said, as soon as he saw that I was fully conscious, “possibly you may have suspected that I have not always been charmed at the attentions you have paid Señorita Maria. However, you will be glad to learn that I have at last decided to accept you as my brother-in-law. I have given directions that the marriage ceremony shall take place to-morrow evening. I shall be honoured by the alliance, I am sure, for within a week you will be the only Americano alive on the Island of Luzon. I have just come from a conference with General Aguinaldo, and the council of war has set upon February 4th as the date when we shall have the pleasure of capturing Manila and exterminating your army. You are at Carrino, a hundred miles from the city, helpless and unarmed. I think you will see the advisability of accepting gracefully the privilege of becoming a member of our distinguished family.

“It is barely possible,” he went on, “that you may feel like declining to become the husband of Señorita Maria. Americanos are not renowned for their courtesy. So I give you a day to think it over. We Aguilars do not often force ourselves upon strangers, but under the circumstances I consent to forget our family pride. You may give me your answer to-morrow.”

I knew what he meant. This was a sample of Spanish revenge with a Filipino barb to it. If I stayed, I was a branded deserter. I knew that, and Aguilar knew it too. And he was sure enough that I’d never marry his sister under those circumstances, or he’d never have made the offer. The only possible way out of it—although that seemed hopeless—was to escape, carry the news to General Otis, and save the army. It would mean a pardon, and maybe shoulder-straps for me.

Could I get away? That was the question. I had no time to lose. To travel a hundred miles through an unknown hostile country in a week, without arms, food or money, was no child’s play. But I watched my chance.

About sundown a Tagalo woman, homely as a hedge-fence, came in with my dinner. She hung round as though she were willing to talk, and I set to work to see how I could use her. I’d had some experience with women, and had found them mostly alike, black and white, and I used every trick I knew on her. Of all the cyclone love-making I ever did, that got over the ground the quickest. I worked so hard I almost meant it, and she rose to the hook.

That night she got the guard off, filled him up with _bino_, and showed me the way out of the plantation through the banana grove. Outside, she had a little scrub pony waiting. She pointed to it, and gave me a general idea of the direction, then put her arms on my shoulders and held up her great thick lips to be kissed. That was about the hardest work I had on the whole trip. Then I jumped into the saddle and pelted down the road like Sheridan thirty miles away. I thought I was a hero, all right, and I saw my picture in the papers with shoulder-straps and the girls kissing me, like Hobson. It was a grand-stand play to save the army. As near as I could calculate, that was the night of January 31st, and I had six days to get to Manila. It looked easy.

I kept as nearly south as I could guess, and rode that pony almost to death. At daylight I hid and hobbled him and crawled into the brush to sleep. When I woke up the nag was lying in a puddle of blood, hamstrung. That was the first blow.

There was not a soul in sight, but I imagined there was a boloman behind every tree. I listened, and every waving bush scared me worse. I was actually afraid of the light. If this were the beginning of the trip, what would the end be? But I had to go on, and do my best.

I got under cover and crawled like a snake till I came to a patch of banana trees, where I stopped long enough to eat and to fill my pockets. For two days I kept it up, making about thirty miles south, I suppose, dodging villages, skirting the roads and sleeping most of the daytime. It was hot and dusty; food was scarce and water scarcer.

So I fought my way through the tropical night, tortured by mosquitos, insects, and ants. Luckily it was near the full of the moon, and I was able to drag myself along all night. The way gradually became more moist and swampy. I toiled through slippery mud, and had often to make detours to avoid sinking in great morasses. Then, just at dawn of the third morning I came upon the banks of the Pasig. Now I had four days more in which to save the army, and a quiet river to drift down at night, hiding by daylight, if I could only find something to float on.

Towards noon, as I lay in the bushes, I saw an empty boat bobbing down stream. I swam out to it, hauled it ashore, and hid it in the bushes. That night I began to paddle down the river, calling myself “Lieutenant” Roberts.

Twice, before morning, I thought I heard the sound of oars or paddles behind me, and got inshore to listen, but nothing appeared. At dawn I drew in to the bank, hid the boat, and crawled to a safe place and slept like a horse. After I had foraged for bananas and got back to the river, the boat was gone! I began to lose hope.

I was certain that I had tied the boat securely, so I knew now that someone was on my trail. I had not only to make my way on foot through the wilderness, but I was to be dogged at every step. What with the heat, starvation, and growing fear, I was pretty nearly out of my head, but the knowledge that upon me alone depended the safety of the army kept me on, straining every nerve. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have given it up right there.

After I had followed the bank of the river for some distance, some logs came drifting down the current. I took the chances of being seen, and swam out and captured two of them. Tied together with long, tough creepers, they made a passable raft, and all that night I floated down stream, paddling as well as I could with my hands. I passed a lot of houses and villages on the banks, and so I knew that I was approaching the city. Sometimes I heard the sound of drums and bugles, for the insurgents were all over the country raising recruits. I must have been wandering in my mind by that time, for I wasn’t a bit scared any more—only watching for wild bananas and bread-fruit, and wondering how long I’d last. I succeeded in killing some of the many tame ducks I saw, and ate them raw, not daring to build a fire.

Next night the river broadened out into a good-sized lake. By the look of it, I took it to be Laguna de Bay, about twenty-five miles from Manila. I had only that night and the next day to reach our troops. If the first shot were fired before I got to the outposts, I might just as well drop into the Pasig and go to the bottom.

When the sun rose I slid into the water and struck out for the shore, intending to take my chances along the bank by daylight. This was the morning of the 4th of February. Somehow, some way, I had to get through the circle of the Filipino lines drawn about the city. I hoped that I was too close to the town for them to dare to interfere with an American soldier in the daytime. So I climbed up a slippery bank and broke into the brush, about as tired and discouraged as a man could be and still live.

Then—all of a sudden—I was nailed from behind! The game was up. Somebody gripped me by the throat. I was so weak, there was no fight left in me. In half a minute I was bound by a dozen niggers, who came jumping out of the bushes and fell on top of me from all sides at once. I didn’t much care what they were going to do with me: I had quit. Five days of fear and suspense and suffering had taken every bit of nerve out of me.

As soon as I was tied up they began to rush me along the road, kicking me up every time I faltered, and jabbing me with bolos when I fell. I don’t know why I didn’t die right then. I don’t know why my hair isn’t white.

At last we came to a little nipa hut, guarded by Filipino soldiers in dirty white uniforms and bare feet. I was thrown inside, unbound, and given a gourd of rice. I ate it, hoping it was poisoned. From all I saw, I was sure the tip about the outbreak was straight, for the place was bustling with soldiers coming and going, and I noticed they all had ammunition.

At about four o’clock I was bound again and gagged. I thought it was the end, sure, this time, and I was ready to die game. But it was only a new kind of torture. They prodded me with their bayonets, marching me to a place where I could look through the bushes right across a little river. There, on the other side, was one of our sentries pacing up and down, and way off I saw the Stars and Stripes floating in the sun. I could hear a band playing “There’ll be a hot time,” too. If I could have yelled across just once and given our boys warning, I wouldn’t have minded anything they did to me. But I was gagged. I believe I cried.

Then they took me back to the hut, and night came on. Every minute that passed made the torture worse and worse. I didn’t care for myself any more; I was only thinking about the boys across the river, all unconscious of what was going to happen. I knew so well how careless they had got to be, and what fun they made of the idea that the niggers could possibly have the nerve to attack us. They would all be fooling around the streets of Manila, probably half of them at the theatre or dancing or in the cafés, leaving only the guard to take the first rush. It didn’t seem possible that we could be saved. Our entrenchments would be carried at the first charge, I was sure. The Tagalos in town would rise, and it would mean a wholesale massacre.

Of course you know now all about the battle, for the night of February 4, 1899, is school-book history by this time. I doubt if there was any actual date set by Aguinaldo for rushing Manila, though he had considerable trouble keeping his cocky little niggers in order. If there was a time set, it wasn’t that night, anyway. The Filipinos were getting more insulting every day, and I suppose it was only a question of a week or so at latest. But I didn’t know it then. Everybody has heard by this time how the row opened, with a Nebraska private shooting at four Tagalos who tried to pass Block House No. 6. But all I knew was what Aguilar had told me, and from what I saw, it looked nasty enough to be true. I could see that the niggers were prepared to go into action at a minute’s notice.

So I waited and waited in the hut, dying by inches. I hoped I had been fooled, and feared that I wasn’t. I imagined by what I had seen that I was at San Felipe, on the bank of the San Juan River, where it joins the Pasig. If so, the Nebraska boys ought to be nearest me. My regiment was with Ovenshine, to the south of the city, camped near Malate.

I felt about the way you feel when a tempest is coming up, and I was just waiting for the first clap of thunder. Along about half-past eight, I should say, I heard a single shot ring out, and right off, as if it had been a signal, the Mausers began to crack over by the river. The fire increased steadily till they were shooting all over to the north in the Tondo District. Company after company of Filipinos ran past the hut, the officers yelling like mad. Still, there was nothing but Mausers going, popping like fire-crackers, and it seemed hours before the fire was returned. I was sure they had carried the town. At last I heard a volley of Springfields—I knew them by the heavy boom, and I knew then that the Nebraska boys had formed and had gone into action. I had been with the regulars long enough to look down on the volunteers; but when I heard that firing, I just stood up and yelled! It didn’t die down, but kept up steadily, and I was sure the boys were holding the Filipinos back, when the Utah light artillery got into action. Then, just like a thunderstorm, the noise slowly swept round to the south, and the Springfields took up the chorus down through Anderson’s Division; first the California boys and the Idahos of the 1st Brigade, till about three in the morning the regulars were engaged. Of course I had to guess it out from what I knew of the way our troops were camped, but I imagined I could tell the minute my regiment began to fight. The Astor Mountain Battery and the 6th Artillery began to answer the Filipino’s Krupp guns, and then till daybreak the battle was going on all round the town.

I waited for the Springfield fire to weaken, dreading that we would be driven in, but when it kept up as if it never would stop, I was sure that we had whipped them. The Filipinos began to retreat past the hut in disorder, the officers as badly scared as the privates. I was watching them, laughing, when four niggers broke into the hut, tied my arms, packed me on a mule, and rushed me off.

For four or five days I was carried back and forth behind the Filipino army, dodging out of every skirmish, as the Americans pushed Aguinaldo back all along the circle. One night we spent in Mariquina, and left early in the morning, while white flags were flying to lure our troops into the town. Then we travelled southwest towards Pasai. I wondered what they were keeping me for, and why they didn’t either kill me or let me go. Then I remembered what I’d heard of Spanish prisons, and I stopped wondering and began to pray.

We ended, finally, in a church the insurgents were trying to hold while our boys were getting ready to charge. I was driven up into a bell-tower half battered to pieces from our shells and filled with smoke. A squad of natives were firing from the windows.

There in a corner was Señor Aguilar, in the uniform of a Filipino colonel, and I knew that my case was to be settled at last. He looked black. I didn’t have long to wait this time. The niggers threw me down, and put a Filipino uniform blouse on me, taking it from a dead soldier on the floor. I didn’t try to resist. What was the use?

Then Aguilar said to me: “I hope you have enjoyed your journey, Señor Roberts. My men took care to make it as interesting as possible. A man who has the courage to refuse the hand of an Aguilar deserves distinguished treatment.” He got as far as that with his Spanish sarcasm, and then his native Filipino savagery got the better of him.

“You d—— fool, did you think for a moment that I’d let an American hound like you marry my sister? Do you think I would let a man live who had played with her? No, by heaven, nor die, either, except like a dog. I have let you live long enough to be hanged by your own countrymen. You’re a deserter, and I’ve given some interesting information to your spies. And you’ll be caught fighting in our ranks!” Then he drew his revolver and pointed to the dead Filipino on the floor. “Take that gun, and go to the window, and shoot down your brother dogs!” he cried.

I don’t know why I didn’t shoot him, instead, right there, but I had lost my nerve. I went to the window and fired at a bare space. And then, if you’ll believe it, I saw my own regimental flag coming up with Old Glory, as my own bunkies formed for the rush. It was Colonel Knowlton’s command that was to take the church. I don’t know what ever became of Aguilar, for I just stood up in the window and cheered as the boys came on. They charged with a yell that did my heart good to hear, for I lost myself and my danger watching the way they did the work.

But I remembered soon enough. The Filipino fire died away, and the insurgents scurried out of the building like rats. I was pulled back with them as they retreated, but as we crossed a dry creek bed I stumbled and fell. Just then a detachment of my own company came up, skirmishing, and saw me. I threw up my hands, and a corporal covered me. I knew him well; he used to drive in the little donkey-cart with me in Manila when I marketed.

He dropped his rifle and said, “Good God! It’s Roberts.”

I tried to explain how I’d been knocked out and captured, but they wouldn’t believe me. I had been posted for a deserter, and Aguilar had fixed me. All I could do was to ask them to shoot me right there, as if I had been killed in the battle. But they had cooled down some while I talked, and they couldn’t do it in cold blood. Finally, the corporal said:

“See here, boys, I enlisted to fight, and not to be a hangman. Roberts has messed with me, and I can’t do it. Perhaps what he says is true; I don’t know. If you want to arrest him, go ahead. But I’ll be darned if I want it said that the old 114th had to shoot a deserter. Come on, and let him take his chances!”

He turned his back on me, and they followed him. I ripped off my canvas coat and ran down the creek and hid till night.

There wasn’t a man on the whole island, nigger or white, who wasn’t my enemy, and I didn’t expect I’d ever escape. But there was a woman. She wasn’t exactly the kind you’d ever suspect of having a heart, but she saved my life. She hid me in a shed outside of the town, and fed me and nursed me till I was able to get away on a blockade runner and come to San Francisco. I owe that woman something, and if I’m ever flush again, she’ll get it back.

So it was a woman who sent me to the Philippines, it was a woman who got my promotion, a woman who tortured me like a fiend, and a woman who saved me. And the queer part of it is that the last one was what most people would call the worst of the lot!

* * * * *

Admeh Drake was seeing his own phantoms of the Philippines on his cot; the man with the yellow beard, Maidslow, _alias_ Roberts, was looking with eyes that saw beyond the walls of the Hammam, when the Hero of Pago Bridge brought himself back with a jerk.

“You’ve told me all except how you got here,” he said.

“Plain drunk,” said Maidslow, “the first I dared get after I left the Islands. But it isn’t safe for me to stay in San Francisco, now Colonel Knowlton is back here. If Maxie saw through the beard, he will, and the place is full of Secret Service men.”

Admeh Drake suddenly jumped from the couch.

“What will you give me if I get that legacy for you?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“Done!” cried the Hero. “See here, it’s too easy! Colonel Knowlton don’t know your real name’s Maidslow, does he?”

“No, I enlisted as Roberts.”

“Dead to rights. He’ll take Maxie’s word when she identifies her husband to him. All right again. Well, let me play Harry Maidslow, and go with Maxie to the Colonel. I take my thousand, and you take the rest and—Maxie. How’s that?”

“If Maxie will stand for it, I’m ready,” said the deserter.

During the rest of the night, the man who went for a soldier and wished he hadn’t, and the man who didn’t go and wished that he had, lay in an upper corridor of the Hammam discussing the details of their conspiracy.