He shall awake to glory—
Who sleeps unknown to fame,
And with Columbia’s bravest
Will answer to his name.
Her personal safety demanded that she continue her journey northward, without delay; also her inclination to rejoin Aguinaldo and his troops—although his exact whereabouts were unknown—invited her in this direction.
At San Isidro, from which place Aguinaldo had been driven, she saw some American soldiers administering the water cure to some Filipinos in order to make them reveal the whereabouts of their wily general. Marie was angry. She yearned to shoot, but she was no longer on the aggressive; she was now a fugitive from justice. At this place she inspected the old Filipino prison and on its walls found the names of Gilmore and his party, whom she had helped to capture at Baler, who had been imprisoned there, and who were still alive when Aguinaldo was driven from the city of San Isidro by the approach of the Americans. She determined to take her revenge on them for this water cure punishment, if she ever found them. But the opportunity never came. So journeying on toward the northern part of Luzon she had many experiences, and she came in contact with tribes whom she had never seen before and whose dialect was foreign to her. Many things combined to retard her progress. Often she grew very weary and would have turned back, except for fear.
Following up the valley of the Pampanga river and thence on northward along the Barat, she passed through the province of Nueva Ecija, crossed the Caraballo mountains which form its northern boundary, and then entered the province of Nueva Vizcaya, where she came upon the head-waters of the Rio Magat river.
In crossing the Caraballo mountains she made her way through a deep gorge at night. It was now about the middle of February. A full moon shone at its best. The weather was ideal. Journeying was abnormally pleasant. Under favorable conditions, during times of peace, the trip she was taking would have been a delightful outing. Just now things were different. Small garrisons of American soldiers had crowded forward and were occupying the largest cities along her route. As yet she had not gotten beyond them. “A guilty conscience needs no accuser”; everywhere that she went she imagined herself to be under suspicion.
Far up in the Caraballos she came across a little mountain torrent which leaped down over the mountain side from one rocky ledge to another at quite regular intervals in a series of waterfalls until it beat itself into a turbulent spray in the bed of the chasm below. The laughing moon filtered its beaming rays through the thin sheet of shimmering water as it danced down its course from precipice to precipice, and seemingly converted it into a great silvery stair-way connecting earth with heaven. Marie’s heart throbbed with emotion. The dashing of the falling water on the rocks below in the bed of the canon made a hollow sound as its echoes reverberated through the gorge above.