“What time is it?” asked Marie of the Spanish officer who stood near her.
“Twelve-thirty,” answered he, as he looked at his watch.
Marie whiled away the afternoon watching the Spaniards on Corregidor island burying their dead comrades. She wanted to go home, but she feared to go past Dewey’s fleet.
That evening things became solemnly quiet; and the blazing sun, as its face reddened into nightly slumber beyond the watery horizon of the Pacific, bade farewell to a finished deed, which, in the history of naval warfare, has never been surpassed; while the pale-faced moon, moving slowly up her appointed path, looked calmly down with her quartered cheek in silent benediction on the blazing hulls of the Spanish ships as they slowly cremated their dead and dying.
The next day the Spanish Commandante on Corregidor discovered that Dewey had blockaded the port of Manila, so he restrained Marie from starting home for nearly a week.
Finally, she got permission to go. As she passed Dewey’s fleet she was surprised to find everything so peaceful and to see dozens of native canoes hovering along the port-holes of his vessels, selling fruit and curios to his men.
Marie reached home in the early evening, and found her old mother frantic because of her absence and the excitement that had taken place.
During the next few weeks while Dewey was waiting for reinforcements from home, many strange things occurred on shore. The Filipinos captured or killed nearly all of the smaller Spanish garrisons distributed throughout the islands. On May 26, they secretly cut down the Spanish guards walking their beats along the western side of the little town of Cavite, and let in a horde of Tagalos well armed with bolos, who crept up near a large stone cathedral, built in 1643, in which the Spaniards, as a military necessity after their defeat by Dewey, were making their headquarters. These Filipinos made a mad rush through the back door of the building and captured all the Spaniards being quartered therein. This feat also gave them possession of another lot of Mauser and Remington rifles and a goodly store of ammunition, for which they had been yearning.
Dewey had no men whom he could spare to send ashore; therefore, he had left these surrendered Spaniards to take care of themselves. Evidently he did not anticipate an attack upon the garrison at Cavite, or he might have landed enough marines from his battleships to have prevented it.
When Marie heard about the capture of the Spanish garrison at Cavite by the Filipinos, she at once rowed over there to see what was going to be done with the prisoners. This was the first time she had been at Cavite since the day of her lover’s tragic death. She found the Filipinos jubilant over their new fire-arms. But many of them had never before used a gun and they were very awkward with them, so that accidents were constantly occurring. The privileges of target practice given to Marie by the Spaniards, in times past, now found a new reward. She organized the Filipinos into squads for this training, arranged suitable targets for them, supervised the loading and cleaning of their guns, and by voluntary assent became the leader in a whole lot of nefarious mischief in the neighborhood.