Dimiguez arose. “Marie,” said he firmly, “I must be off.”
“But won’t you tell me where you are going and what task lies before you?” pleaded Marie, as she threw both arms about his neck and began to sob, “I’ll never tell a living soul, so help me God, but I must know!”
“A spy never tells his plans to anyone, Marie,” said Dimiguez slowly. “He takes his orders from his chief, plays his part; and if he gets caught, he refuses to speak and dies without a murmur, like a man. Good night, Marie, I must be off; duty lies before me.”
Marie cried herself to sleep.
The next morning she started down town, as usual, for the market place, with her bamboo basket filled with bananas, sitting on her head, and a cigarette in her mouth. She had only gone a block when she met a neighbor girl, one of her chums of equal years to her own, who was a chamber-maid in the German consul’s home on San Miguel Street.
Her friend looked excited. “Have you heard the awful news, Marie?” said she.
“No!” exclaimed Marie, “What is it?”
“Why, Dimiguez was caught last night by Spanish guards inside the yard of the governor-general’s summer palace up on the Malacanan, just as he was slipping out of the palace itself. How he got in there, nobody knows.”
Marie dropped her basket. “Heavens!” gasped she, “Did he do anything wrong?”
“They found in his pocket diagrams of the interior of the palace, showing the entries to it, the room where the governor-general sleeps, and many other things; also your picture. See here! the morning paper gives a full account of it.”