The Inhabitants of the Philippines

by Frederic H. Sawyer

But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.

When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.

The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.

Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.

The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This not succeeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.

On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.

A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.

Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpened bolo through his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.

The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this. Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing his bolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.

His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.