Then—all of a sudden—I was nailed from behind! The game was up. Somebody gripped me by the throat. I was so weak, there was no fight left in me. In half a minute I was bound by a dozen niggers, who came jumping out of the bushes and fell on top of me from all sides at once. I didn’t much care what they were going to do with me: I had quit. Five days of fear and suspense and suffering had taken every bit of nerve out of me.

As soon as I was tied up they began to rush me along the road, kicking me up every time I faltered, and jabbing me with bolos when I fell. I don’t know why I didn’t die right then. I don’t know why my hair isn’t white.

At last we came to a little nipa hut, guarded by Filipino soldiers in dirty white uniforms and bare feet. I was thrown inside, unbound, and given a gourd of rice. I ate it, hoping it was poisoned. From all I saw, I was sure the tip about the outbreak was straight, for the place was bustling with soldiers coming and going, and I noticed they all had ammunition.

At about four o’clock I was bound again and gagged. I thought it was the end, sure, this time, and I was ready to die game. But it was only a new kind of torture. They prodded me with their bayonets, marching me to a place where I could look through the bushes right across a little river. There, on the other side, was one of our sentries pacing up and down, and way off I saw the Stars and Stripes floating in the sun. I could hear a band playing “There’ll be a hot time,” too. If I could have yelled across just once and given our boys warning, I wouldn’t have minded anything they did to me. But I was gagged. I believe I cried.

Then they took me back to the hut, and night came on. Every minute that passed made the torture worse and worse. I didn’t care for myself any more; I was only thinking about the boys across the river, all unconscious of what was going to happen. I knew so well how careless they had got to be, and what fun they made of the idea that the niggers could possibly have the nerve to attack us. They would all be fooling around the streets of Manila, probably half of them at the theatre or dancing or in the cafés, leaving only the guard to take the first rush. It didn’t seem possible that we could be saved. Our entrenchments would be carried at the first charge, I was sure. The Tagalos in town would rise, and it would mean a wholesale massacre.

Of course you know now all about the battle, for the night of February 4, 1899, is school-book history by this time. I doubt if there was any actual date set by Aguinaldo for rushing Manila, though he had considerable trouble keeping his cocky little niggers in order. If there was a time set, it wasn’t that night, anyway. The Filipinos were getting more insulting every day, and I suppose it was only a question of a week or so at latest. But I didn’t know it then. Everybody has heard by this time how the row opened, with a Nebraska private shooting at four Tagalos who tried to pass Block House No. 6. But all I knew was what Aguilar had told me, and from what I saw, it looked nasty enough to be true. I could see that the niggers were prepared to go into action at a minute’s notice.

So I waited and waited in the hut, dying by inches. I hoped I had been fooled, and feared that I wasn’t. I imagined by what I had seen that I was at San Felipe, on the bank of the San Juan River, where it joins the Pasig. If so, the Nebraska boys ought to be nearest me. My regiment was with Ovenshine, to the south of the city, camped near Malate.

I felt about the way you feel when a tempest is coming up, and I was just waiting for the first clap of thunder. Along about half-past eight, I should say, I heard a single shot ring out, and right off, as if it had been a signal, the Mausers began to crack over by the river. The fire increased steadily till they were shooting all over to the north in the Tondo District. Company after company of Filipinos ran past the hut, the officers yelling like mad. Still, there was nothing but Mausers going, popping like fire-crackers, and it seemed hours before the fire was returned. I was sure they had carried the town. At last I heard a volley of Springfields—I knew them by the heavy boom, and I knew then that the Nebraska boys had formed and had gone into action. I had been with the regulars long enough to look down on the volunteers; but when I heard that firing, I just stood up and yelled! It didn’t die down, but kept up steadily, and I was sure the boys were holding the Filipinos back, when the Utah light artillery got into action. Then, just like a thunderstorm, the noise slowly swept round to the south, and the Springfields took up the chorus down through Anderson’s Division; first the California boys and the Idahos of the 1st Brigade, till about three in the morning the regulars were engaged. Of course I had to guess it out from what I knew of the way our troops were camped, but I imagined I could tell the minute my regiment began to fight. The Astor Mountain Battery and the 6th Artillery began to answer the Filipino’s Krupp guns, and then till daybreak the battle was going on all round the town.

I waited for the Springfield fire to weaken, dreading that we would be driven in, but when it kept up as if it never would stop, I was sure that we had whipped them. The Filipinos began to retreat past the hut in disorder, the officers as badly scared as the privates. I was watching them, laughing, when four niggers broke into the hut, tied my arms, packed me on a mule, and rushed me off.

For four or five days I was carried back and forth behind the Filipino army, dodging out of every skirmish, as the Americans pushed Aguinaldo back all along the circle. One night we spent in Mariquina, and left early in the morning, while white flags were flying to lure our troops into the town. Then we travelled southwest towards Pasai. I wondered what they were keeping me for, and why they didn’t either kill me or let me go. Then I remembered what I’d heard of Spanish prisons, and I stopped wondering and began to pray.