At last the last fireworks had been exploded, the last hurrahs expressed, and in the deep silence and serenity of the night Saguanaldo lay to rest, feeling that, after all, it was not a failure; and, being tired, he slept.
VII.
SUBJECTED BY WORDS.
It was late when Saguanaldo awakened the following morning. He had no more than opened the casement blinds and stepped out on the veranda than he saw that the city was unusually stirred. He went into the streets to make inquiry.
“The American army has arrived and is disembarking,” was the word he received.
He walked into the heart of the city, and saw regiments of soldiers wearing the new khaki uniform, marching through the streets. His heart sank within him at the sight, and the warning Mrs. Rizal had given him recurred to his mind. Against these soldiers he knew he could do nothing, and if he should seek to maintain the Filipino independence that had been proclaimed the day previous, with hostile Spaniards on the one side and hostile Americans on the other, he saw at once that the case was hopeless. Yet, to give up his ambition, to forego independence for the Filipinos, to abandon the hope of making Ambrosia Lonzello his wife and the first lady of Luzon, to yield his new title and new honors without at least a show of resistance, was more than he felt like doing. He was perturbed, his mind flying from one resolve to another and his heart filled with one emotion after another. “And while he mused the fire burned.”
“Camillo, the people are depending on their president to do something for them in this crisis. Do you feel you can gather your troops together and successfully resist the Americans?”
It was Mrs. Rizal speaking. She was standing by his side. There was no trace of exultation in her voice, but she spoke in deeply sympathetic tones.
“What would you advise?” asked the insurgent general, meekly.