But there was little merriment when, five minutes later, the household had taken account of stock and realized the extent of their losses.
Maidie's had evidently been the last room visited. The dressing-table and wardrobe of the opposite chamber—that occupied by Colonel and Mrs. Brent—had been ransacked. The colonel's watch and chain,—too bulky, he said, to be worn at dinner in white uniform,—his Loyal Legion and Army of the Potomac insignia, and some prized though not expensive trinkets of his good wife were gone. Miss Porter's little purse with her modest savings and a brooch that had been her mother's were missing. And with these items the skilled practitioner had made good his escape.
On the floor, just under the window in Maidie's room, lay a keen, double-edged knife. The stumps of two or three matches found in the colonel's apartment and others in Miss Porter's showed that the thief had not feared to make sufficient light for his purpose, and from the floor of Marion's room, close to the bureau, just where it had been dropped when the prowler was alarmed, Miss Porter picked up one of the old-fashioned "phosphors" that ignite noiselessly and burn with but a tiny flame.
Marion's porte-monnaie was in the upper drawer, untouched, and such jewelry as she owned, save two precious rings she always wore, was stored in her father's safe deposit box in the bank at home. The colonel was really the greatest loser and declared it served him right, both provost-marshal and chief of police having warned him to leave nothing "lying around loose."
At sound of the shots on the Calle Nueva, Brent had sallied forth, and, rushing impetuously into the dimly lighted thoroughfare, had narrowly missed losing the top of his head as well as his watch, an excited sentry sending a bullet whizzing into space by way of the colonel's pith helmet, which prompted the doctor to say in his placid and most effective way that more heads had been lost that night than valuables, and one bad shot begat another.
Sentries down towards the barracks, hearing the three or four quick reports, bethought them of the time-honored instructions prescribing that in case of a blaze, which he could not personally extinguish, the sentry should "shout 'Fire!' discharge his piece, and add the number of his post." Sagely reasoning that nothing but a fire could start such a row, or at least that there was sufficient excuse to warrant their having some fun of their own to enliven the dull hours of the night, Numbers 7 and 8 touched off their triggers and yelled "Fire;" 5 and 6, nearer home, followed suit, and in two minutes the bugles were blowing the alarm all over Ermita and Malate, and rollicking young regulars and volunteers by the hundred were tumbling out into the street, all eagerness and rejoicing at the prospect of having a lark with the Bomberos, the funny little Manila firemen with their funnier little squirts on wheels.
It was fully half an hour before the officers could "locate" the origin of the alarm and order their companies back to bed, an order most reluctantly obeyed, for by that time the nearest native fire-company was aroused and on the way to the scene. Others could be expected in the course of the night, and the Manila fire department was something that afforded the Yankee soldier unspeakable joy. He hated to lose such an opportunity.
But for all his professional calm, Dr. Frank was by no means pleased with the excitement attending this episode. For an hour or more officers from all over the neighborhood gathered in front of Brent's and had to be told the particulars, "Billy Ray's daughter" being pronounced the heroine everybody expected her to be, while that young lady herself, now that the affair could be called closed, was in a condition bordering on the electric. "Overwrought and nervous," said Miss Porter, "but laughing at the whole business."
What Frank thought he didn't say, but he cut short Sandy's visit to his sister, and suggested that he go down and tell the assemblage under the front gallery that they would better return to whist—or whatever game was in progress when the alarm was given. The colonel could not invite them in as matters stood, and they slowly dispersed, leaving only a senior or two and Lieutenant Stuyvesant to question further, for Stuyvesant, coming from afar and arriving late, was full of anxiety and concern.
Despite his temporary escape, circumstances and the civil authorities (now become decidedly military) had thrown him into still further association with the woman whom he would so gladly have shunned—the importunate Miss Perkins. He had taken a turn round the block—and refuge in the English Club—until he thought her disposed of at home and his carriage returned. He had come across the little equipage, trundling slowly up and down the street in search of him, had dined without appetite and smoked without relish, striving to forget that odious woman's hints and aspersions, aimed evidently at the Rays, and had gone to his own room to write when a corporal appeared with the request from the captain in charge of the police guard of Ermita to step down to the office.