For a long time Fagan and Patricia lived on in the village, till the man was becoming a myth. A dozen enterprising hunters had brought in his head, and the papers in Manila had ceased to give circumstantial accounts of his capture even when news was short. But at last an American prisoner came to the town, the only white man who saw Fagan alive after his desertion. By a strange chance he was an officer of the Fifty-fourth, and Fagan received him with sober joy.
"I'se right glad to see you, Lootenant," he said. "I raickoned they'd bring you up heah, when I hea'd you was done capchuhed. They kind brings mos' ev'ything up to me, these days."
The white man was not joyous, though undismayed. "What are you going to do with me, now you've got me?" he demanded.
"Don' you worry, Lootenant," Fagan answered. "I wouldn' huht you. No, sir, you nevah troubled me. You jus' set down an' have a smoke. I'se a gwine to send you down, jus' as soon as I can."
They sat and smoked in silence, the giant negro, the prisoner in his draggled uniform, the little brown guards with their naked bobs. At last Fagan said, "I raickon we could talk bettah if these yere guards was away. You git," he pointed to them. "Course you give you' wohd, Lootenant, you won't try to 'scape."
The officer nodded, and fell to watching the great, quiet, unshapen black face. It roused his curiosity for a certain non-offensive air of self-reliance which he had never seen in a black face before. "Fagan," he asked suddenly, "why did you do it?"
"Do what, Lootenant?"
"Desert, and lead the natives against us, and all that."
The negro clenched his great fist. "This yere fool talk makes me plumb riled," he said. "I ain' nevah fought the 'Mericans. I'se a 'Merican myse'f, ain't I? An' what would I want to go yampin' roun' the country for, anyway? I'se got all I want right heah, chickens, an' yams, an' a good dry house, an'—" He reached out his hand and grasped Patricia's little one, and they smiled at each other. "No, sir, I don' want no moah fightin'. I'se got a good home, an' I goes to sleep when I wants to, an' I gits up when I wants to, an' I has clean clo'es ev'y day. You tell the Kuhnel, Lootenant, you tell him Fagan nevah went to huht no 'Mericans, an' nevah will, less'n they goes to huht me first. You believe that, don' you, Lootenant?" And the officer gravely nodded "Yes."
"Bout that desertin', now. I'se thought a whole lot about that, an' I raickon I done it jus' because I had to have mo' room. I'se some big, I raickon—" he let his eyes travel slowly down his body and chuckled—"seems like I has to have a whole plainty o' room. Seems like they wahn't room fo' me an' Lootenant Sha'ap in one ahmy. No, sir. An' then, I dunno, Lootenant, maybe you nevah felt how a woman can make you 'shamed of youse'f? This Patricia lady, maybe she don' seem like much to you, but she's a heap to me—yes, sir,—an' she kep' sayin', 'What for you go calabozo, Fagan? Kill the little pig of a teniente,' she says. 'Kill ev'rybody. You'se big enough.' An' then she laughs at me. 'Is you 'fraid, big man?' she says. 'Lend me youah revolvah, then. I'se little, but I ain't afraid.' She jus' made me plumb scairt of myse'f, an' we come away, 'cause Patsí an' me needed more room 'n what Lootenant Sha'ap could give us. 'Pears like you couldn' understan' it, but that's the way it was, I raickon. I jus' had to desert or huht somebody bad."