In the meantime the Spanish soldiers in the town were being massacred. At the appointed time a workman who was working on the barricade, gave the guard a blow with his axe, and the guard fell without a groan. Then the rest of the workmen went up to the barracks with the pretense of asking for their pay. When the big drum began to beat they seized the guns and hacked and struck the unarmed soldiers.
The slaughter was indeed terrible to see. From all the streets of the town leading to the public square issued hundreds of men all at the same time. I think I still see those men with red-banded hats shouting at the top of their lungs, holding and wielding aloft their long sharp bolos, which as they caught the rays of the morning sun dazzled our eyes. These men advanced toward the barracks and there finished the massacre. Some of the Spaniards, deprived of their guns and hard pressed by the workmen who had gone up to the barracks, jumped down from the windows; but it was like jumping from the frying pan to the fire, for they were met by bristling swords and lances.
Of the twenty-one soldiers, four chanced to be out, two being in the market, and two being in my uncle's house. On hearing the tumult and seeing men issue from all the streets and alleys, they ran like mad to their quarters; but they were all killed before reaching the place. One of the soldiers had a bayonet slung to his belt, and drawing it he tried to ward off the blows rained upon him from all sides; but in a moment a shower of clubs and stones laid him low. Some of the soldiers fell on their knees and implored for mercy, but the blood of those men, many of whom had already experienced cruelty and torture under the Spanish servitude, was boiling with vengeance toward the Spaniards as a whole people.
The lieutenant was just going from the convent, where he had his quarters, to the barracks, and on seeing the hordes of men, he turned back, ran up in the church steeple, and from there with his revolver fired shot after shot at the multitude below. Strange to say he hit not even a man, probably through excitement. The men, seeing him, climbed up the tower. He surrendered, knelt down and threw away his revolver; but no quarter was given. He was cut all through and his body was thrown from the dizzy height of about a hundred and fifty feet to the ground. His blood, which trickled from the tower down the church wall may still be seen to this day.
In the afternoon two native carts full of corpses, their arms and legs dangling in the air, were all that was left of those twenty-two cazadores. I liked the Spanish soldiers, for they were such jolly, good fellows, fond of dancing fandango and singing airs of old Spain. Many of them were mere boys seized and shipped over here from their unwilling parents. To them the only civilized and good country was Spain; and they often excited my boyish fancy with exaggerated descriptions of the wonders of Spain and extravagant tales about its people. So as the carts passed by our house and I saw the dead, I felt quite sad, wondering within my childish heart what fault they had committed to entitle them to such a sad end.
The town friar, the town tyrant and dictator, had now also come to the end of his reign. Men who formerly used to kneel to him denounced him and gave vent to all their accumulated hatred. The friar was sentenced to death and a few days afterwards was executed outside the town. The infuriated ignorant people sacked the convent, which at that time was like a palace. They were so enraged that even the library of the convent was burned and cut to pieces. A funny incident is connected with the convent. It was circulated about that on the outbreak of the disturbance the friar had dropped a large box of silver into one of the convent wells, of which there were several. A few years after the war some people began to inquire as to which of the wells the money had been dropped into; for the American soldiers, on occupying the convent, filled up some of the wells. Finally there was discovered on the trunk of a santol tree growing near one of the wells a cross carved in the wood. People said it was the sign made by the friar to mark the spot, and henceforth began to dig up the well. They worked for days and days expecting every moment to find the box, but in vain. As a result of their over-credulity they expended a good deal of hard labor.
—Marcelino Montemayor.