Part 15

There was a Filipino village which lay off to the left in a mountain gorge, and, scouting carefully around the side of the mountain, we approached it over the last one-hundred yards, crawling through the grass and under mango and cocoanut trees up to within fifty yards. It lay before us, a dozen shacks on bamboo cane shocked with the coarse straw of the rice stalk. The usual squalor and emptiness was around, but there was not a sound, not a living thing. Moriarty nudged me. "There's hell in there somewhere, Cap'n," he whispered, "it looks too peaceful loike."

It was a Filipino cur that gave us the first clue. They are a half wild breed but little beyond the wild things from which they came. As we lay in the grass listening, this dog which had come back for some morsel he knew of, smelt us, and, barking, bolted down a wooded path to the right. We saw him clearly as he ran up a hillside and over into a gorge beyond.

"There's where we'll find the family," said Moriarty. "We'll cut around and go into the rear."

It took us a good hour to do it, crawling through bamboo and cane, under mango and desert palm, through the tall grasses, and over _crevasses_. Often we lay quiet in them, resting.

It was a weird and unexpected sight that we saw. Before us lay a little cup in the mountain gorge, a natural amphitheater, framed by a small grove of palms and cocoanuts. Savage figures were going through queer rites.

We stopped, puzzled. "That isn't the village people," whispered Davis. "There are no women or children there, they are headmen and warriors, and that is some ceremony they are performing."

We crawled up within fifty yards, and then I wished I had not come, for Moriarty gripped me quickly, and pointing to two naked men bound and laid out on the ground, whispered, "Ross and Billings!"

"We're too late, Captain, they've been killed and now they are fixing to mutilate them, cut off their heads and cut out their hearts and fill their stomachs with stones."

I nodded. It was the savage's way of mutilating all our dead.

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.

WILLIAM McKINLEY."

* * * * *

Home again, Eloise, Home and June. Born of the same May mother, but differing so, this and that other June! How un-of-kin they seem to be! That last dance, the death ride over the bars, homeless, the despair of that June a year ago.

And now home again and The Home Stretch mine!

June, and writing this to you as I sit in the old sweet place under the old sweet trees, under the hickories we loved so, and afar off is the flush of old gold above the violet of the western hills.

And the same June sounds come over to me: the call of an ewe to an errant lamb; the neigh of a mare and the answering whinny of her colt; the distant staccato clatter of binders amid the wheat.

And a wood-thrush deep in our laurel thicket rinsing clear the air around with her liquid notes....

Since Christmas I have seen it all, for it was Christmas when the boys came marching home, seen it again and again, never tiring of seeing it, life as it shuttles across the loom of the Middle Basin. If the canvas were a meadow backgrounded in green, this is how the picture would be: a patch of red-bud now and then for early spring; and later, a green sheen creeping like a high-tide over the hills. But later still, after the wheat is harvested it were a stubblefield canvassed to cleanness; there would run a riot of passion flowers and morning glories in brave, bold colors of beauty. And the picture would be June in the Middle Basin.

I have sat this afternoon watching the trees on the round breast of the hill across the way, a shield of green on the round shoulder of the hill; and as I looked I had a strange upliftingness which I knew was of poetry and that it was the melting of my heart because it was June again and home and because of the love of you.

Why should I potter and make excuse of it? If there be love there is a poem.

Take mine as it is--this voice of the trees--as the sweetness of it all came over me, listening, listening and loving you, Eloise.

WHAT SAY THE BEECHES?

What say the beeches, heart of my heart? (Comrades we three!) Wise in their canopied gallery of art-- Clear-visioned, true, in their cloisters apart From the life which dwarfs when the soul is the mart Of passions set free. Write it, dear beeches--historian tree-- Write it for me.

My heart, it hath doubted; my soul, it hath slept. Alone with the trees and the stars it hath wept, Not knowing the mystery, not seeing the end-- Oh, be to it, beeches--calm beeches--its friend! For part of the Infinite--you and the stars-- Sing it the Truth with your infinite bars.

The little leaves whisper'd, baby-voiced, low; The finger-limbs wrote it 'mid starlighted glow: "_Love and believe, and be kind as you go!_" (O Heart, it is so!)

Why should you care for me to write of war and that last bloody fight, now that I am at home again, and my heart in the melting? Is it because it takes it all to make life, the melting, the June days, and the fight?

And why have I written all this, here, at The Home Stretch, months after it has happened, with you coming, even as I write it, down the old sweet path to me, in the old sweet way? Coming to see if I have finished my letter to you. And I wrote it because but yesterday you said, "Jack, dear, I want you to finish that letter you wrote me in the Philippines, the one you wrote to _your love that was lost_. Finish it, Jack, this one here at home for me, in our own home, _ours_, and _for your love that was found!_"

And so I have done it, sweetheart.

*IV*

*THE BURGEONING*

"Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow." --Tennyson.

*CHAPTER I*

*TWO OF A KIND*

As I said at the beginning, this is my story, and the telling of it must be in my own way. It does not satisfy me to end it with our home-coming, and I hold that no story is complete unless it satisfies, first of all, him who tells it.

Why should love stories end at the altar? For there is that in life which surpasses the altar in sweetness. It is the hearth. And there is that which is greater than love making. It is the home making. And there are those in every marriage that is a marriage, of far greater worth to the world--since only through them may the world's work go on--than the two who joined their lives at the altar, and they are the children who come of the marriage.

If my love for Eloise was great before, it is greater now, for in the sweet years that have passed have I not proved it a thousand times, as hath she, in the little things of life, the knight-errantries of love, the battle and the gauge that tests us all daily? And are not the still, calm depths in the eyes of the wife more satisfying to the soul than the merry frothy shoals that gleam so riotously in the eyes of the sweetheart?

No man has truly loved a woman until she has borne him children; not for the child alone, uplifting as is the first sight of this tiny sweet seed of the blossoming of their doubly growing souls, but as an evidence that there is nothing worth while in the world except love, since not only does it create every great, beautiful, sweet dream that has been given to the world, but even the dreamer himself!

No man has loved until he has seen the child of his love. It is not the row-boat of the calm waters that the sailor loves as his very life, but the good ship of the mid-seas that holds fast and true, even in the throes of the tempest, bringing him to port and to joy in the morning.

And so I have small respect, and a wholesome contempt for those story-tellers who make of married love a marred love; who paint its ending with the coming of children; and who would leave the wife at the last page waiting for a lover's love lost in the husband's love.

I did not know at first what it was that made Eloise change that first year, from the brilliant, riding, hunting, dancing Eloise of old to this thoughtful, beautiful creature who wanted always to slip off and read Keats by herself, and was slyly making what I thought were doll clothes for Little Sister; and when I was most happy with her to see now and then, through the day, little strange, unnatural flashes of sadness come into her deep, thoughtful eyes, and little, queer, unsatisfying doubts that would creep in. Unknowing, I would see her watching me; and it would end at night in our own room with her in my lap in tears and her arms around me.

"Jack! Jack!" she cried. "Oh, I am so foolish; but are you sure that you will never love anybody better than you do me, not even your own child?"

How well I remember that day of my greatest agony and blessing, and the long, long hours in which her life hung in the balance. I remember the good old doctor who came first, and then, as the day wore on, the graveness that settled in his eyes and the hurried sending to the city for another one. I walked sorrowfully among the trees, a coward, a weakling, for the first time in my life.

Aunt Lucretia was my only comforter, and a stern, unflinching, rude comforter she was. "Jack, _Colonel_ Ballington, actually wilted, a weakling, ruined by matrimony and too much love, as I always said you'd be, if you didn't look out. Jack, you make me tired; born on this stock farm, seeing my crop of colts and calves, my spring lambs, too, and whatnots; the finest and most high-bred matrons of my paddock, bringing in their first borns and not a fool doctor in ten miles to meddle with them and Nature and her ways! And now Eloise, the gamiest, nerviest, bravest thoroughbred of them all! You make me tired! Come, I want to make a man of you."

She seized my arm and led me into the house. In the library she took down her huge silver goblet, an international trophy won in France, her prize for the best merino wool, and then she led me down into the cellar.

I had never been in it but once before. It was cool and damp, its sleepers lined with cobwebs. She lit a lantern and led me into the farthest, darkest, cobwebbiest corner. She stood before a small ten-gallon cask, and said with some show of grim humor, "Jack, it was fifteen years ago to-day--Did you know this was an anniversary? Well, fifteen years ago to-day I brought Eloise here, adopted her and gave her to you; and that day I told my old friend, Jack Daniel, to send me this ten-gallon cask of pure whiskey, to be put away, and to get good and mellow for just what I knew would one day happen--the first colt! And now we are going to tap it in his honor!"

"_His_ honor, Aunt Lucretia?" I said shamedly. "I had set my heart on her being a--a--why, we are going to name her Lucretia," I added timidly and with some confusion.