Among the Moritos
N the following day headquarters were moved into San Diego. Sam was lodged in the town hall with the general, and Cleary got rooms close by. There were rumors of renewed activity on the part of the Cubapinos, but it was thought that their resistance for the future would be of a guerrilla nature. There was, however, one savage tribe to the north which had terrorized a large district of country, and the general decided that it must be subdued. Sam heard of this plan, but did not know whether he would be sent on the expedition or not, and urged Cleary to use his influence so that he might be one of the party.
"I'll manage it for you, old man," said Cleary, two or three days after the battle. "I've got the general in a tight place, and all I've got to do is to let him know it and he'll do whatever I want."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, he had about as much to do with the San Diego fight as the man in the moon."
"What?"
"Well, I'll tell you the story. I've run down every clue and here it is. You see somehow Colonel Burton got the orders mixed up that morning and addressed every one of them to the wrong general."
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Sam. "That explains why they couldn't understand the orders there in the Third Brigade, and why I took all day to find San Diego. I wonder if it's true. Why on earth didn't Gomaldo win then? It must have been a close call."
"It's plain enough why he didn't win," said Cleary. "That chap Garcia was one of his spies, and a clever one too. He got all he could out of you and me, but that wasn't much. Then he had the native servant of the general in his pay. As soon as you left on the night before the battle he cleared out too, and he got a statement from the native servant of all the general intended to do. He got the news to Gomaldo by midnight, and before sunrise the Cubapino forces were ready to meet each of our columns when they advanced. They had ambushes prepared for each of them. If the orders had gone out straight we'd have been cleaned out, that's my opinion. But you see, they all went wrong and the columns advanced along different roads, and poor Gomaldo's plans all went to pot. I believe he had Garcia hanged for deceiving him. You haven't seen the general's servant since the battle, have you?"
"Now that you speak of it, I don't think I have," said Sam. "But he's a great general all the same, don't you think so?"
"Of course," answered Cleary.
"I wonder if all battles are won like that?" said Sam.
"I half think they are," said his friend. "And then the generals smile and say, 'I told you so.'"
"Cleary," said Sam, "I want you to answer me one question honestly."
"Out with it."
"Did I have much to do with winning that battle or not?"
"To tell the honest truth, Sam, between me and you, I don't know whether you did or not. But The Lyre will say that you did, and that will settle it for history."
Sam sighed and made no other reply.
The expedition against the Moritos started out a week later. It consisted of two regiments, one of colored men under a certain Colonel James, the other of white volunteers, with a brigadier-general in command. Sam was assigned to the command of the volunteer regiment with the temporary rank of major, its colonel having been wounded at the battle of San Diego. For a whole day they marched northward unmolested, and encamped at night in a valley in the mountains with a small native village as headquarters. There had been little incident during the day. They had burned several villages and driven off a good many cattle for meat. Sam was surprised to see how handsome the furniture was in the little thatched cottages of the people, perched as they were on posts several feet high. It was a feast day, and the whole population had been in the streets in their best clothes. The soldiers snatched the jewels of the women and chased the men away, and then looted the houses, destroying what they could not take, and finally setting them on fire.
"It's better so," said Sam to his adjutant. "Make war as bad as possible and people will keep the peace. We are the real peacemakers."
He heard shouts and cries as he passed through the villages, and had reason to think that the soldiers were not contented with mere looting, but he did not inquire. He took his supper with the general at his headquarters. Colonel James and Cleary ate with them, for Cleary was still true to his friend's fortunes and determined to follow him everywhere. After an evening of smoking and chatting, Sam, Cleary, and Colonel James bade the general good-night and started for their quarters, which lay in the same direction. It was a gorgeous moonlight night, such a night as only the tropics can produce, and they sauntered slowly along the mountain road, enjoying the scene.
"There is a question that I have been wanting to ask you, Colonel," said Sam to Colonel James as they walked on together. "What do you think of darkies as soldiers? I have never seen much of them, and as you have a negro regiment, you must know all about it."
"Well, the truth is, Major," responded the colonel, "I wouldn't have my opinion get out for a good deal, but I'll tell you in confidence. They make much better soldiers than white men, that's the long and short of it."
"How can you explain that? It's most surprising!" cried Sam.
"Well, they're more impressible, for one thing. You can work them up into any kind of passion you want to. Then they're more submissive to discipline; they're used to being ordered about and kicked and cuffed, and they don't mind it. Besides, they're accustomed from their low social position to be subordinate to superiors, and rather expect it than not. They are all poor, too, and used to poor food and ragged clothes and no comforts, and of course they don't complain of what they get from us."
"You mean," said Cleary, "that the lower a man is in the scale of society the better soldier he makes."
"Well," answered the colonel, "I hadn't ever put it just in that light, but that's about the size of it. These darkies are great hands at carrying concealed weapons, too. If it isn't a razor it's something else, and if there's a row going on they will get mixed up in it, but they're none the worse as soldiers for that."
"Let's go up to that point there and take the moonlight view before we turn in," suggested Cleary.
The others agreed, and they began to climb a path leading up to the right. It was much more of a climb than they had expected, and when they had become quite blown they sat down to recover their breath.
"I think we'd better go back," said Colonel James. "We may lose our way, and it isn't safe here. The Moritos are known to be thick in these mountains, and they might find us."
"Oh, let's go a little farther," said Cleary, and they set out to climb again.
"The path seems to stop here," said Sam, who was in the lead. "This must be the top, but I don't see any place for a view. Perhaps we'd better go back."
Cleary did not repeat his objection, and they began to retrace their steps. For some time they went on in silence.
"The path begins to go up-hill here," said Cleary, who now led. "I don't understand this. We didn't go down-hill at all."
"I think we did for a short distance," answered Sam.
They went on, still ascending.
"There doesn't seem to be any path here," said Cleary. "Do you see it?"
His companions were obliged to admit that they did not.
"We'd better call for help," said Sam, and the three men began to shout at the top of their voices, but there was no reply. An hour must have elapsed while they were engaged in calling, and their voices became husky, but all in vain.
"Hist!" said Cleary at last. "I think I hear some one coming. I heard the branches move. They have sent out for us, thank fortune! I didn't like the idea of sleeping out here and making the acquaintance of snakes and catching fevers."
The words, were hardly out of his mouth when three shadowy figures sprang out of the bushes and grasped each of the three men from behind, holding their elbows back so that they could not use their arms, and in a moment a veritable swarm of long-haired, half-clad Moritos were upon them, pinioning them and emptying their pockets and belts. It was quite useless to make any resistance, the attack had been too sudden and unexpected. Cleary cried out once, but they made him understand that, if he did it again, they would stab him with one of their long knives. When the captives were securely bound, the captors began to discuss the situation in their own language, which was the only language they understood. There was evidently some difference of opinion, but after a few minutes they came to some kind of an agreement. The legs of the prisoners were unbound, and they were made to march through the jungle, each one with two guards behind him, who pricked him with their lances if he did not move fast enough. Their only other arms seemed to be bows and arrows. The march was a very weary one, and through a wild, mountainous country which would have been impassable for men who did not know it thoroughly. Occasionally they seemed to be following obscure paths, but as often there was no sign of a track, and the thick, tropical vegetation made progress difficult. For an hour or two they climbed up the half-dry bed of a mountain torrent, and more than once they were ankle-deep in swampy ground. The Moritos passed through the jungle with the agility and noiselessness of cats, but the three white men floundered along as best they could. Their captors uttered never a word and would not allow them to speak.
The sun was just rising over a wilderness of mountains when they came to a small clearing in the woods, apparently upon a plateau near the top of a mountain. In this clearing there were a number of isolated trees, in each one of which, at about twenty feet above the ground, was a native hut, looking like a huge bird's nest. A small crowd of natives, including women and children, ran toward them shouting, and now for the first time the men of the returning party began to talk too. Some of them tied the legs of their prisoners again and sat them down on the ground, while the others rehearsed the history of their exploit. It was a curious scene to witness. The men as well as the women wore their long, coarse hair loose to the waist. Some of the men had feathers stuck in their hair, and all of them were grotesquely tattooed.
"I wonder if they're cannibals?" said Cleary, for there seemed to be an opportunity now for conversation.
"I don't think there are any in this part of the country," said Colonel James. "Here comes our breakfast anyway."
All the inhabitants of the village had been inspecting the captives with great interest, especially the women and children. Two women now came running from the group of tree-houses with platters of meat, and the crowd opened to let them approach.
"Don't ask what it is," said Cleary, as he gulped down his rations.
"I can't eat it!" cried Sam.
"Oh, you must, or you'll offend them," said Colonel James.
And they completed their repast with wry faces. When they had finished, one of the warriors, whom they had noticed before on account of his comparative height and the magnificence of his decorations, came up to them and addressed them, to their great surprise, in Castalian. He explained to them that he was the famous savage chief, Carlos, who as head of the Moritos ruled the entire region, and that they were prisoners of war; that he had learned Castalian as a boy from a missionary in the mountains when the land was at peace; and that a palaver would be held on the following day, to which the heads of the neighboring villages would be invited, to determine what to do with them. He showed special interest in Sam's red hair and mustache, and smoothed them and pulled them, asking him if they had been dyed. When he was informed that they were not, he was filled with admiration and called up his favorites to examine this wonder of nature. Sam had noticed that from the moment of his arrival he had been the object of admiration of the women, and this fact was now accounted for.
The three prisoners had no reason to complain of their treatment during the day. A guard was set upon them, but the ropes by which they were tied were loosened, and they were allowed from time to time to walk about. Most of the morning they passed in much-needed sleep. In the afternoon Carlos visited them again with some of his men, and set to work to satisfy his curiosity as to their country, translating their answers to his friends. His Castalian was very bad, but so was that of his captives; yet they succeeded in making themselves understood without difficulty.
"Do you have houses as high as those?" he asked, pointing to the human nests in the trees.
"Yes, indeed," said Cleary. "Near my home there is a house nearly a quarter of a mile long and twice as high as that tree, and nine hundred people live in it."
There were murmurs of astonishment as this information was translated.
"What is that great house for?" asked the chief.
"It's a lunatic asylum."
"What is that?"
"A house for lunatics to live in."
"But what is a lunatic?"
Cleary tried in vain to explain what a lunatic was. The Moritos had never seen one.
"We have plenty of such houses at home," said Sam, "and we have had to double their size in ten years to hold the lunatics; they are splendid buildings. There was one not very far from the college where my friend and I were educated. But some of our prisons are even larger than our lunatic asylums."
"What is a prison," asked Carlos.
"Oh," said Sam, "don't you understand that either? It's a house in which we lock up criminals—I mean men who kill us or rob us."
"Oh, I see," replied Carlos. "You mean your enemies whom you take prisoner in battle."
"No, I don't. I mean our own fellow citizens who murder and steal."
"Do you mean that you sometimes kill each other and steal from each other, your own tribe?"
"Yes," said Sam. "Of course people who do so are bad men, but there are some such among us."
A great discussion arose among the natives after hearing this.
"What do they say?" asked Colonel James in Castalian.
"They say," said the chief, "that they can not believe this, as they have never heard of members of the same tribe hurting each other."
"We do all we can to prevent it," said Sam. "In our cities we have policemen to keep order; that is, we have soldiers stationed in the streets to frighten the bad men."
"Do you have soldiers in the streets of your towns to keep you from killing each other!" exclaimed the chief, in astonishment. "Who ever heard of such a thing? I do not understand it," and, altho Sam repeated the information in every conceivable way permitted by his limited vocabulary, he was unable successfully to convey the idea.
"It is strange how uncivilized they are," he said to his friends.
"Do you live on bananas in your country?" asked Carlos.
"No; we eat them sometimes, but we live on grain and meat," said Sam.
"You must have to work very hard to get it."
"Yes, we do, sometimes twelve hours a day."
"How frightful! And is there enough for all to eat?"
"Not always."
"And are your people happy when they work so hard and are sometimes hungry?"
"Not always," said Sam. "Sometimes people are so unhappy that they commit suicide."
"What?"
"I mean they kill themselves."
There was now another heated discussion.
"What do they say?" asked Colonel James.
"They say that they did not know it was possible for people to kill themselves. I did not know it either. It is very strange."
"What limited intelligences they have!" exclaimed Sam.
"They say," continued Carlos, in a somewhat embarrassed manner, "that if you are condemned to death, they wish one of you would kill himself, so that they can see how it is done."
"There's a chance for you, Sam," said Cleary, but Sam did not seem to see the joke.
"I am very sorry," said Carlos, seating himself nearer to Sam, "I am very sorry that we may have to kill you, for I like you; but what can we do? It is a rule of our tribe to kill prisoners of war."
"I really don't see what they can do, if that is the case," said Sam in English. "If that is their law, and they have always done it, of course from their point of view it is their military duty. I don't see any way out of it. Do you?"
"It wouldn't break my heart if they failed to do their duty in this case," said Cleary. "For heaven's sake, don't tell him what you think. Let's keep him feeling agreeable by our conversation. He's fallen in love with you, Sam. Perhaps he'll give you to one of his daughters and she may marry you or eat you, whichever she pleases."
"I wish you wouldn't joke about these things," said Sam. "It's a serious piece of business. There's no glory in being tomahawked here in the mountains."
"And I haven't got my kodak with me either," said Cleary.
"What made you come into my country?" asked Carlos. "Did you not know how powerful I am? And what have I ever done against you?"
"We came because we were ordered to," said Sam.
"And do you do what you are ordered to, whether you approve of it or not?"
"Of course we do."
"That is very strange," said Carlos. "We never obey anybody unless we want to and think he is doing the right thing. I tell my men here what I want to do, and if they agree to it they obey me, but if they don't I give it up. But you do things that you think are wrong and foolish because you are ordered to. It is very strange!"
"We are military men," said Sam. "It requires centuries of civilization to understand us."
"How do you kill your prisoners?" asked Carlos.
"We don't kill them," answered Sam.
"I don't know about that, Sam," said Cleary in English. "We didn't take many prisoners at San Diego."
"That's a fact," answered Sam, in the same language. "We didn't take many. I never thought of that."
"Don't tell him, tho," added Cleary.
"But when you soldiers have to execute an enemy for any reason, how do you do it?"
"We shoot them with rifles," said Sam.
"Is that all?"
"No; we make them dig their graves first," interposed Cleary. "That's a hint to him," he whispered. "It's better than the stew pot."
"Dig their graves first!" exclaimed the chief, and he turned to his men and explained the matter to them. They were evidently delighted.
"What are they saying?" asked James again.
"They say that that is a grand idea, and that they will adopt it. They think civilization is a great thing, and they want to be civilized," said Carlos.
"There, I knew they weren't cannibals!" said the colonel.
There was silence for several minutes, and Carlos smoothed Sam's locks with his hand.
"We must entertain him," said Cleary. "Say something, Sam, or he'll get down on us."
"Say something yourself," said Sam, who was thoroughly vexed at his friend's ill-timed flippancy.
"Does your tribe live in these mountains and nowhere else?" asked Cleary.
"Oh, no. We have brothers everywhere. They are in all the islands, and all over the world."
"You tell them by your language, I suppose."
"No, some of them do not speak our language. That makes no difference. We tell our brothers in other ways."
"How?" said Cleary.
"There are four marks of the true Morito," said the chief. "Their young men are initiated by torture. That is one mark. Then their chief men wear feathers on their heads. That is the second. And the third mark is that they are tattooed, as I am," and he pointed to the strange figures on his naked chest; "and the fourth is that they all use the sacred tom-tom when they dance."
"Sam," said Cleary, "have you got those East Point photographs in your pocket?"
"Yes," said Sam, thrusting his hand into his bosom.
