Chapter 14

That night the sentries all over the suburbs of Ermita and Malate were peering into every dark alleyway and closely scrutinizing every human being nearing their posts. Few and far between were these, for the natives were encouraged to remain indoors after nine o'clock, and the soldiers forbidden to be out. The streets were deserted save by occasional carriage or carromatta bearing army or navy officers, or what were termed the foreign residents--English or German as a rule--from club or calls to their quarters.

"Lights out" sounded early at the barracks of the soldiery, for they were up with the dawn for breakfast that they might be through with their hardest drills before the heat of the day. The "pool rooms," as the big _Americanos_ called these "wide open," single-tabled billiard saloons that flourished in almost every block, were required to put up their shutters at nine o'clock, and every discoverable establishment in which gambling had prevailed in other form had long since been closed by a stony-hearted chief of police, whose star was worn on each shoulder rather than the left breast, and who, to the incredulous amaze of Spaniard and Filipino alike, listened unmoved to the pleas of numerous prominent professors of the gambling industry, even when backed by proffers of a thousand a week in gold. That the "_partida de billar_" had not also been suppressed was due to the fact that, like Old Sledge in the Kentucky Court, its exponents established it to be, not a game of chance, but skill, and such, indeed, it proved to every Yankee who put up his money against the bank. With an apparently congenital gift of sleight of hand, developed by years of practice at pitch penny from toddling babyhood to cock-fighting adolescence, the native could so manipulate the tools of his game that no outsider had the faintest "show for his money," while, as against each other, as when Greek met Greek, it became a battle of the giants, a trial of almost superhuman skill. It was the one game left to adult Tagalhood in which he might indulge his all-absorbing and unconquerable passion to play for money. All over town and suburbs wandered countless natives with wondering game-cocks under their arms, suffering for a chance to spur if not to "scrap," for even the national sport had been stopped. Never in all the services in all the churches of Luzon had such virtue been preached as that practised by these heartless, soulless invaders from across the wide Pacific--men who stifled gambling and scorned all bribes. "Your chief of police is no gentleman," declared certain prominent merchants, arrested for smuggling opium, and naturally aggrieved and indignant at such unheard-of treatment. "He did not tell us how much he wanted! He did not even ask us to pay!" Retained in responsible positions in the office of the collector of customs, two Spanish officers of rank were presently found to have embezzled some twelve thousand dollars in some six weeks of opportunity. "But this is outrage! This is scandalous!" quoth they, in righteous wrath on being bidden to disgorge and ordered before a court-martial. "We have nothing but the customary perquisite! It is you who would rob us!" From highest to lowest, in church, in state, in school,--in every place,--there seemed no creed that barred the acquisition of money by any means short of actual robbery of the person. As for thieving from the premises, the Filipino stood unequalled--the champion sneak-thief of the universe.

And the sentries this night, softly lighted by a waning old moon, were on the lookout everywhere among the suburbs for two malefactors distinctly differing in type, yet equally in demand. One, said the descriptions, compiled from the original information of Zenobia Perkins, Spinster; residence 259 Calle Real, Ermita; occupation, Vice-President and Accredited Representative for the Philippine Islands of the Patriotic Daughters of America, and the additional particulars later obtained from Lieutenant Gerard Stuyvesant, aide-de-camp to General Vinton, 595 Calle Real, Malate--one, said the descriptions, was a burly, thick-set, somewhat slouching American, in clothing of the sailor slop-shop variety, a man of five feet six and maybe forty years, though he might be much younger; a coarse-featured, heavy-bearded man, with gray eyes, generally bleary, and one front tooth gone, leaving a gap in the upper jaw next the canine, which was fang-like, yellow, and prominent; a man with harsh voice and surly ways; a man known as Sackett among seamen and certain civilians who probably had made their way to Manila in the hope of picking up an easy living; a man wanted as Murray among soldiers for a deserter, jail-bird, and thief.

The other malefactor was less minutely described. A native five feet eight, perhaps. Very tall for a Tagal, slender, sinewy, and with a tuft of wiry hair and sixteen inches of shirt missing. "For further particulars and the missing sixteen inches, as well as the hair, inquire at Colonel Brent's, Number 199 Calle San Luis, Ermita."

It seems that soon after dark that eventful evening Mrs. Brent and Miss Porter had seen Maidie comfortably bestowed in the big, broad, cane-bottomed bed in her airy room, and had left her to all appearances sleeping placidly towards eight o'clock, and then gone out to dinner. Whatever the cause of her agitation on receiving at Brent's hands the little card photograph of herself, it had subsided after a brief, low-toned conference with Sandy, who quickly came and speedily hastened away, and a later visit from Dr. Frank, whose placid, imperturbable, restful ways were in themselves well-nigh as soothing as the orange-flower water prescribed for her. Even the little night-light, floating in its glass, had been extinguished when the ladies left her.

The room assigned to Marion was at the north-west corner of the house. Its two front windows opened on the wide gallery, that in turn opened out on the Bagumbayan parade. Its west windows, also two in number, were heavily framed. There were sliding blinds to oppose to the westering sun, translucent shells in place of brittle glass to temper, yet admit, the daylight, and hanging curtains that slid easily on their supporting rods and rendered the room dark as could be desired for the siesta hours of the tropic day.

The dinner-table, brightly lighted by lamps hung from hooks securely driven in the upper beams (lath and plaster are unknown in this seismic land), was set on the rear gallery overlooking the _patio_, and here, soon after eight, Brent, his little household, the doctor, and two more guests were cosily chatting and dining, while noiseless native servants hovered about and Maidie Ray presumably slept.

But Maidie was not sleeping. Full of a new anxiety, if not of dread, and needing to think calmly and clearly, she had turned away from her almost too assiduous attendants and closed her eyes upon the world about her. A perplexity, a problem such as never occurred to her as a possibility, one that sorely worried Sandy, as she could plainly see, had suddenly been thrust upon her. Hitherto she had ever had a most devoted mother as her counsellor and friend, but now a time had come when she must think and act for herself.

The little card photograph picked up by the men on the scene of the scuffle at the edge of the Bagumbayan had told its story to her at least and to Sandy. It could only mean that Foster, he who spent whole days and weeks at their New Mexican station to the neglect of his cattle-ranch, he who had 'listed in the cavalry and disappeared--deserted, maybe--at Carquinez, had eluded search, pursuit, inquiry of every kind, and, all ignorant, probably, of the commission obtained for him, had, still secretly, as though realizing his danger, followed her to Manila.

This then must have been the tall stranger who called himself an old friend and would give no name, for it was to Foster, in answer to his most urgent plea,--perhaps touched by his devoted love for her lovely daughter,--that Mrs. Ray had given that little vignette photograph long months before. There, on the back, was the date in her mother's hand, "Fort Averill, New Mexico, February 15, 1898." Well did Marion remember how he had begged her to write her name beneath the picture, and how, for some reason she herself could not describe, she had shrunk from so doing. There had been probably half a dozen pictures of Foster about their quarters at Averill,--photographs in evening dress, in ranch rig, in winter garb, in tennis costume,--but only one had he of Maidie, and that not of her giving.

Now, what could his coming mean? What madness prompted this stealth and secrecy? If innocent of wilful desertion, his proper course was to have reported without delay to the military authorities at San Francisco and told the cause of his disappearance or detention. But he had evidently done nothing of the kind. They would surely have heard of it, and now he was here, still virtually in hiding and possibly in disguise, and one unguarded word of hers might land him a prisoner, a war-time deserter, within the walls of the gloomy carcel in Old Manila.

Sandy she had to tell, and he was overwhelmed with dismay, had galloped to Paco to see his colonel and get leave for "urgent personal and family reasons," as he was to say, to spend forty-eight hours in and about Manila. If a possible thing, Sandy was to trail and find poor Foster, induce him to surrender himself at once, to plead illness, inexperience,--anything,--and throw himself on the mercy of the authorities. Sandy would be back by nine unless something utterly unforeseen detained him at East Paco. Meantime what else could she do?--what could she plan to rescue that reckless, luckless, hare-brained, handsome fellow from the plight into which his misguided, wasted passion had plunged him?

From the veranda the clink of glass and china, the low hum of merry chat, the sound of half-smothered laughter, fell upon the ear and vexed her with its careless jollity. Impatiently she threw herself upon the other--the left--side, and then--sat bolt upright in bed.

Not a breath of air was stirring. The night was so still she could hear the soft tinkle of the ships' bells off the Luneta,--could almost hear the soothing plash of the wavelets on the beach. There was nothing whatever to cause that huge mahogany door to swing upon its well-oiled hinges. She heard them close it when they went out; she saw that it was closed when they were gone, yet, as she turned on her pillow and towards the faint light through the northwest windows, that door was slowly, stealthily turning, until at last, wide open, it interposed between her and the outward light at the front.

Many an evening lately she had lain with hands clasped under the back of her bonny head looking dreamily out through that big open window, across the gallery beyond and the open casements in front, watching the twinkle of the electric lights above the distant ramparts of the old city and the nearer gleam of the brilliant globes that hung aloft along the west edge of the Bagumbayan.

Now one-half of that vista was shut off by the massive door, the other was unobscured, but even as with beating heart, still as a trembling mouse, she sat and gazed, something glided slowly, stealthily, noiselessly between her and those betraying lights, something dark, dim, and human, for the shape was that of a man, a native, as she knew by the stiffly brushed-up hair above the forehead, the loosely falling shirt--a native taller than any of their household servants--a native whose movements were so utterly without sound that Maidie realized on the instant that here was one of Manila's famous veranda-climbing house-thieves, and her first thought was for her revolver. She had left it, totally forgotten, on the little table on the outer gallery.

Even though still weak from her long and serious illness, the brave, army-bred girl was conscious of no sentiment of fear. To cry out was sure to bring about the instant escape of the intruder, whereas to capture him and prevent his getting away with such valuables as he had probably already laid hands on became instantly her whole ambition. The side windows were closed by the sliding blinds. Even if he leaped from them it would be into a narrow court shut in by a ten-foot, spike-topped stone wall. He had chosen the veranda climber's favorite hour, that which found the family at dinner on the back gallery, and the quiet streets well-nigh deserted save by his own skilled and trusted "pals," from whose shoulders he had easily swung himself to the overhanging structure at the front. He would doubtless retire that way the moment he had stowed beneath his loose, flapping _ropas_ such items as he deemed of marketable value.

He was even now stealthily moving across the floor to where her dressing-table stood between the westward windows. The man must have the eyes of a cat to see in the dark, or else personal and previous knowledge of the premises. If she could only slip as noiselessly out by the foot of the bed, interpose between him and the door and that one wide-open window, then scream for help and grab him as he sprang, she might hope to hold him a second or two, and then Brent and Dr. Frank would be upon him.

All her trembling was from excitement: she knew no thought of fear. But strong and steady hands were needed, not the fever-shattered members only just beginning to regain their normal tone. She slid from underneath the soft, light coverlet without a sound. The sturdy yet elastic bottom of platted cane never creaked or complained. She softly pushed outward the fine mosquito netting, gathered her dainty night-robe closely about her slender form, and the next minute her little bare feet were on the polished, hard-wood floor, the massive door barely five short steps away. She cautiously lifted the netting till it cleared her head, and then, crouching low, moved warily towards the dim, vertical slit that told of subdued light in the salon.

There was no creak to those thick, black-wood planks with which Manila mansions are floored. Her outstretched hand had almost reached the knob when her knee collided with a light bamboo bedroom chair. There was instant bamboo rasp and protest, followed by instant vigorous spring across the room, and instant piercing scream from Maidie's lips.

Something dusky white shot before her eyes, something inky black and dusky white was snatched at and seized by those nervous, slender, but determined little hands. Something dropped with clash and clatter on the resounding floor. Something ripped and tore as an agile, slippery, squirming form bounded from her grasp over the casement to the veranda, over the sill into the street, and when Brent and the doctor and the women-folk came rushing in and lamps were brought and Brent went shouting to sentries up and down the San Luis and shots were heard around the nearest corner, Maid Marion, Second, was found crouching upon the cane-bottomed chair that had baffled her plans, half-laughing, half-crying with vexation, but firmly grasping in one hand a tuft of coarse, straight black hair, and in the other a section of Filipino shirt the size of a lady's kerchief--all she had to show of her predatory visitor and to account for the unseemly disturbance they had made.

"Just to think--just to think!" exclaimed Mrs. Brent, with clasping hands, "that this time, when you might most have needed it, Mr. Stuyvesant should have gone off with your pistol!"