IV
"Gomez," said Papa Gato disconsolately; "Gomez, I can't stand it any longer!"
This was in the commandante's hut, during the burning hours of the siesta, and ten days after the arrival of the widow. Gato and Gomez were lying stomachs down upon a petate in attitudes of limp discouragement.
"It's pretty bad," murmured Gomez meditatively.
"We're up against it," went on Gato (all this took place in Tagalog, but is translated into equivalent English).
"We sure are," echoed Gomez sombrely.
There was a long, pained silence.
"Gomez," whined Gato, "I haven't a pulgada of authority left!"
"You certainly haven't," said Gomez, a certain appreciation brightening his manner.
"And you have less!" went on Gato.
"The she-cat!" spit out Gomez, all appreciation gone.
"She bosses the camp!"
"She sure does."
"We have to eat at tables now."
"With forks."
"And say grace."
"With our faces in our plates."
"We have school every day," went on Gato, sinking deeper and deeper into despair.
"Do we; well, I guess! 'Do you ssee dde hhett? Yiss, I ssee dde hhett. How menny hhetts do you ssee? I ssee ttin hhetts. Oh, look at de moon, she is shining up there. I loof de name of Wash-ing-ton, I loof my coon-tree, too'—ah, it makes me sick!" And Gomez spit upon the ground.
"Gomez, Gomez; we must do something!"
"Go ahead"—graciously.
"Gomez"—hopefully—"let's chop off her head!"
"You can't"—gloomily.
"Good Lord, Gomez; don't you think, with my best bolo, very well sharpened, if we hit hard, very hard, that maybe——"
"That's not it. Remember the speech she made to us the first day:
"'Keep that in your heathen minds. I'm an American woman, an American woman, remember! That means I am sacred, sacred! If you harm me, if you as much as touch one of my hairs——'"
"But she has only two or three, Gomez!"
"Don't interrupt me—'If you as much as touch one of my hairs, you know what will happen. The American soldiers will come after you. Not the scouts, not the constabulary, but the American soldiers. They will follow you like hounds, ten thousand, a hundred thousand of them, if necessary. They will never let you rest. They will avenge me—well, you know the American soldier, my friends. Don't get him mad. I am the American woman; I am sacred!'"
"But, Gomez; do you think that is all true?"
"It is; I know."
"But, Gomez; the Americans, they are not fools. They can see. They must know that she is old like my grandmother, that she is seven feet tall, that she takes out her teeth at night, that——"
"It doesn't matter; she's an American woman."
"Ah, these Americans; what a singular people!"
A long contemplative silence.
"Gomez, Gomez"—with sudden inspiration—"let's poison her!"
"Now you're talking like a babe; there's the same objection."
"Oh!"—more silent despair.
"Gomez, let's take her back, back to Taal!"
"Umph—what do you think the Taal people would do to us?"
"Madre de Dios, Gomez, is there no way, none at all?"
"None I can see."
"Then let me die!"
But hope in human breast is indestructible. It was Gomez who, after all, found the solution.
"We'll take her to some other town, some town where she is not known, absolutely not known," he proposed in rapt accents.
"Bagum-Bagum!" exclaimed Gato, rising to his feet; "there's ten thousand pesos in the treasury!"
"We'll raid the town and leave her there!"
"But say, there 're some constabulary there; do you know how many?"
"No, I don't know. But the constabulary inspector knows."
"She's freed him, too!"—Gato flew from the immediate consideration of practical things to a bitter recapitulation of wrongs. "He walks around the camp as if he owned it. And she gave him my best pantaloons, those with the gold stripes——"
"Never mind," said Gomez soothingly; "we'll question him to-morrow."